My mother was the first storyteller that I knew, except I didn’t know that that’s what she was. Not until later. I knew she would tell stories, but I didn’t know she was a storyteller until I read a story in a book that I had heard her tell. When my mother came to live with us and would send letters home, people seemed to love getting them and reading them. It wasn’t because of the exactness of her words or the correctness of her grammar, but because of her ability to “tell it” and make you see it…and sometimes feel it too. It was the joy and the truthfulness of her telling, not that everything was factual necessarily, but that it was truthful, nonetheless, that made people want to sit and hear her words or read them in her letters. Every now and again, I will remember one of the stories I heard my mother tell. One of the greatest compliments to a storyteller has to be that somebody will remember something that you told ‘em… long after you told ‘em…cause it helped them see something, or made ‘em feel something, or for the truth that was in it. And sometimes, every now and again…I can hear her voice, see hear expression, feel her presence, recall her joy, and be moved by the truthfulness of her telling. Yeah…sometimes.
I am a storyteller, a poet, a teacher, a wife, a mother, a grandmother, a lover of life, a lover of God, a lover of words and of The Word. Proverbs 12:25 says: “Anxiety weighs down the human heart, but a good word cheers it up.” That’s what I desire to do – Share a good word!
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