When the Words Made Me Cry
I sat down at my desk this week to write the final chapter of my Patriot book, and I had to stop. Not because the words wouldn’t come, but because they poured out of me, literally. The kind that make your hands hover over the keyboard while you wait to see the words on the screen clearly again. Just as a reminder, Ann and Edward — the two central figures in this book — are not fictional creations. They are, in fact, my fourth great-grandparents. I won’t share the passage here because it belongs to the ending, and the ending belongs to the book. But I will tell you this: writing the final words of Ann’s story, I felt the full weight of who she was. A woman who carried burdens quietly, who loved fiercely, who gave thanks even when she had every reason not to. And Edward, my great-great-great-great-grandfather, faithful to the last. That faithfulness, that quiet love — it did not disappear when they left this earth. In some way I don’t fully understand, it found its way down through...