Amy Hill Hearth

I want to share a story with college students struggling to answer the questions, What career should I choose? What do I want to do with my life?

 

I was one of those students who floundered. I changed my major from Psychology to Sociology, then History, and finally English Literature.

 

Although I had always loved to write, it didn't occur to me that I could be a professional writer. I didn't see the common thread until someone pointed it out to me. Perhaps this was because I didn't know anyone who made a living as a writer. My father had a degree in engineering and my mother, in math and physics.

 

And then one day during the worst of my confusion, my father asked me, sort of nonchalantly, "Have you ever noticed that the classes where you got an A – when you were happy – always included a writing project?"

 

Hmmm. Truer words were never spoken. The subject didn't matter at all. History, English literature, Sociology – Dad was right. If a course had been structured around a writing project, I was in Heaven, and I excelled.

 

"You love to write," Dad said simply.

 

And then I asked what now seems like the stupidest question ever: "Doesn't everyone?"

 

"Why, no," Dad replied. "In fact, most people don't like to write at all. See, writing comes so naturally to you that you assume everyone can do it well. Maybe you should be a writer."

 

The conversation with Dad was life changing. I had always expressed myself through writing. I kept diaries and wrote long letters starting in grade school. I wrote a draft of a novel during the summer between fifth and sixth grade. Why had I not seen this as a path for my future? Why did it take someone to point it out to me?

 

I have no idea. I was young and overwhelmed, I guess.

 

I knew in my heart that Dad was right. Immediately, I applied and then transferred to a smaller college with an intensive writing program. I took courses in magazine writing, creative writing, and screenwriting. I joined the college newspaper staff. I got an internship at a magazine in my senior year, then my first job at a daily newspaper, and on and on, leading me eventually to a reporting contract at The New York Times and then my first book contract.

 

After a single conversation with my dad, I was able to find my place in the world, and I've never looked back. Sometimes, what it takes is the right advice from the right person. 

 

 

They were smart. Wise. Intuitive. Their stories from long ago were riveting and historically significant.

  

But what seemed to draw readers to Sadie and Bessie Delany, the late centenarian pair of sisters of Having Our Say fame, was the fact that they were utterly charming and completely genuine. In a society in which people are accustomed to artifice and manipulation, the Delany Sisters were a shock. In telling their story, they had no agenda, and readers could sense it immediately.

 

The day I met them in 1991, they were 100 and 102 years old, and I was a 33-year-old newspaper reporter. Talking to them was like time-travel. They reached back into the past with ease, and took me with them.    

 

They blew me away.

 

I was captivated by the way they interacted with one another, sister to sister, after living together for a century. When I got home that evening, the first thing I did was call my own sister, who is a year and a half older. I couldn't wait to tell her about the pair of centenarian sisters I had met that day, and how they were still giggling and quarreling about things that had happened a century ago when they were little girls. 

 

This was, I told my own sister, the sweetest thing I've ever witnessed.

 

It is this sweetness, this unvarnished charm, that flows through the book. I made sure to include it all. I didn't want the book to come across as too reverent which to me meant stale. I wanted readers to know what it felt like to be in my shoes while I observed them puttering in the kitchen, or listening from "my" chair in the parlor or at the dining room table. Happily, the sisters liked my approach. When I suggested that the book be a work of oral history rather than a third-person biography, they agreed to that as well. To me, the words they chose to tell their stories were as important as the stories themselves.

 

And so, Having Our Say is peppered with endearing expressions and anecdotes. The sisters, for example, referred to themselves quaintly as "maiden ladies," a term I had heard perhaps one other time in my life. When I asked the name of their cat, they explained cheerfully, "We call him Mr. Delany since we don't have a man in the house." When asked why they thought they had lived so long, they replied: "It's because we never married. We never had husbands to worry us to death!" And then they shrieked with laughter at their own joke. 

 

I could go on....and on. But it's all in the book for you to read, anyway. You'll learn a great deal of American history from the book. You'll see flashes of anger and sorrow as they tell their stories. You'll be appalled at some of it. But most of all, when you reach the last page, you'll realize you've fallen in love with the Delany Sisters.  

 

My father was a very good amateur photographer. Then one day in middle age, he set down his camera forever.

 

He simply stopped taking pictures. He'd been his high school's yearbook photographer, documented his own experience in WW II with a camera, and took hundreds of photos of his wife and family in the 1950s, '60, and '70s.

 

I must have been in my late teens when we all noticed he no longer carried his camera bag with him. I asked him why, and he said he was tired of feeling as if he were documenting life rather than living it. "I want to be a participant, not an observer," he explained.

 

I've thought of his words often. I love photography and have sold some of my pictures over the years to newspapers and magazines. I've taken my own photographs for one of my nonfiction books. But I understand what Dad meant and I've heeded his warning. Photography is a passion that will swallow you whole if you're not careful. When I go out with friends, I don't want to be the person everyone counts on to get a photograph of us together. Ditto for every experience from travel to family holidays. I don't want to be worried about the lighting, or if someone blinked. I want to live the experience, not record it.

 

Now this situation is multiplied a thousand times with social media. Those of us who participate are performers, documentarians, reporters, witnesses, and judges. On social media, real life can take a backseat, and it's not always clear what is truly happening. Some people are perhaps too candid while others are cautious. Many people present a curated view of their lives. Some people post photos once a month and others, ten times per day.

 

As for me, I'm finding my own way. I love social media but I don't want it to own me. I love photography but I don't want it to take over.

 

Like Dad, I want to live fully in the moment.

The voicemail message box on my phone gets full very quickly these days. It's not that I've suddenly become more popular. It's that there's very little space left for new messages. I allowed a backlog of old messages from my mother pile up, and I don't want to erase them.

 

Mom died last March.

 

She still had all of her social graces and was the same wise, considerate person she'd always been. The messages reveal that. They also show that she still had the capacity to love life at 94 years of age.

 

The best messages were when she would call to say it was snowing. She loved snow and so do I. Once I was in the middle of a long day in Manhattan with my agent and my book editors, and I checked my messages. "Hi, it's Mom," she said. "It's snowing! It's really coming down! Talk to you later." 

 

She'd also call me about the latest visitors to her bird feeder. She knew them all and worried about specific individuals who hadn't been to the feeder in a while. "I saw the female cardinal, but not the male," she'd say. "I hope everything is all right."

 

Sometimes she'd leave what she called "FYI messages." This usually involved something I'd bought and had shipped to her and she just wanted me to know that it had arrived.

 

An FYI message went like this: "Hi, it's Mom. This is an FYI message. No need to call me back. Especially if you're writing."

 

She lived a hundred miles away. I visited frequently, but in between my trips we used email (yes, she had a laptop) and especially the telephone to stay in close contact.

 

Now she's gone and there's an enormous hole in my life. I have thousands of wonderful memories. I have some of her belongings, such as her wedding dress.

 

But I also have her phone messages.

 

Someday, when I have to upgrade to a new phone, I'll have to figure out a way to save her messages. But for now, I have no intention of doing anything except leaving them where they are. It's nice to know that anytime I want to, I can play her messages and hear her voice.

        Imagine walking down a sidewalk in New York City and seeing thousands of pieces of paper caught in the wind. When you pick up one document out of curiosity, you see that these are, in fact, your papers. It's the Great Depression, you were unable to pay your rent at your dental practice, and your landlord has tossed all of your belongings, including your patient records, bills, and books, into the street. You run up and down the street for hours grabbing what you can. You are heartbroken. All of your dreams have been crushed.

         

      Imagine being a four-year-old girl in Chicago in 1929 who becomes sick with one of the most feared diseases in the world, diphtheria. The city's health department quarantines you, along with your father, into your railroad flat. Officials nail the door shut and paint a giant "D" for diphtheria on your front door. You survive, as does your father, only to have the same thing happen when your family relocates to New York City two years later and the disease you catch this time is scarlet fever. You and your father survive this, too.

     

       Imagine being an Eagle Scout who enlists in the U.S. Army three days after graduating high school in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin, in 1942. By the age of 20 you find yourself on the other side of the world, trying not to get killed by Japanese snipers. Before that, however, there is basic training where, during a live-ammunition exercise, you see your first death. A soldier next to you lifts his head slightly too high while you're all scrambling on your stomachs across a field. Your fellow soldier is killed right before your eyes, and you haven't even left the USA yet.

  

        The first example was Dr. Bessie Delany of the famed centenarian Delany Sisters with whom I collaborated on the 1993 oral history, HAVING OUR SAY. Through her own ingenuity and grit, she re-built her dental practice. She continued to practice dentistry until her retirement.

 

        The second example was my mother. My mother played with her dolls, said prayers, and sang songs to keep up her own spirits while extremely ill and quarantined.

        

        The third example was my father. He adapted and survived WW II in the Army by focusing on a combination of hope, humor, and can-do optimism.  

         

         I provide these three examples to illustrate 1.) losing a business 2.) facing dire illness and quarantine, and 3.) being a war-time soldier.

         

         What these three individuals had in common was resilience. While one could argue that resilience is a trait with which one is born, I contend that it is a learned skill.

         

         Resilience is a reaction to a bad situation. It's a way of framing a problem. It's being knocked down and getting up again.

         

         We're all getting some practice in the art of resilience this year. A pandemic, a severely-damaged economy and a stunning level of anger and uncertainty have created a tragic year, and it's only October.  

         

         I've had my share of hardship and losses in my life, but my response to this year (which, for me, also included the death of my mother in March) has been one of resilience. I am not patting myself on the back. I owe this, 100 percent, to those who modeled that behavior for me, including the Delany Sisters and my own parents.

         

         Resilience is not just an attitude. It's having the ability to stay calm and find solutions, even if they're only smalls steps. Problem-solving, thinking ahead, and accepting reality are part of it, too. Being resilient does not mean your response is perfect. Resilient people have days when they don't get out of bed, or days when they get angry, but the difference is that the next day they are ready to start over. Being resilient, ultimately, can become part of a broader pattern. It is a way of life.  

         

         Now I come full circle to something my readers, followers, and fans have heard me say for years: Listen to your elders, especially those who seem to bounce back from life's challenges. Seek out people you admire and follow in their footsteps.

         

         Remember, at the same time, that some people deemed strong in our society are actually quite weak. Don't mistake loudness for leadership, or over-sharing and attention-seeking for being honest. Beware of people who need to actively prove something all the time. Our culture offers many more negative than positive examples. If you don't have anyone to emulate in your life, then follow the insight offered by the Delany Sisters. "The world is full of good people. Your job is to find them."