Linda Ellis Author - Live Your Dash ®

Short Story of The Dash Book(s)

 

 

Smiley Faces

Smiley Faces
Copyright 2017 Linda Ellis

20 years ago, I experienced an epiphany that literally altered the next two decades of my life, an inspiration that slowly transformed everything I was and everything I believed, the catalyst that would lead me to meet so many of the wonderful people I would come to know. 20 years ago, I wrote The Dash.

Upon first glance, these seemingly simple 36 rhyming lines appear similar to any other poem. But The Dash is different. I could literally write an entire novel consisting of only the stories, the people, and the places this unique creation has brought into my life. There is something about it, perhaps it is the simplicity itself that directs the words straight to the heart of the reader.

Then there are the wonderful coincidences, literally hundreds of them that have occurred over the course of our journey together, so many instances that cannot be explained away or contributed to mere fluke or happenstance. The Dash has the inexplicable ability to reach peoples’ lives at a time when they need it most.

Of the many stories I’ve received over the years, the one that stands out in my mind the most is the smiley face story…

When my daughter was a senior in high school, one of her friends was tragically killed in an auto accident. Our community was stunned and saddened. Hundreds of well-wishers and mourners poured in and out of his parents’ home. I brought a book about The Dash and shared it with his mother. She placed it in the foyer and visitors began to write a favorite memory from her son’s “dash” as they entered. The Dash, as she told me later, thus became an integral part of the grieving process for her and her family, entering their hearts and minds to help heal the tremendous hole left by her son’s sudden absence.

Growing up, many children have a “thing” as they say…a symbol…something they are known for among friends and family. My “thing” was rainbows, my best friend loved Koala Bears. Well...her son's "thing" was smiley faces. He had them everywhere. He wore them on his shirts, had posters on his wall and when he worked at a local restaurant he would use olives, carrots and tomatoes to create smiley faces on customers' salads. On styrofoam cups, he would carve a smiley face so everyone would know that cup was his.  I didn’t know this fine young man well, though in hindsight, I wish I had. After learning more about his cheerful personality, I can understand why he felt a connection to smiley faces.

After some time had passed, this mom decided to attend a seminar to receive support and encouragement among other grieving parents. As she sat there, she glanced around wondering if she had made the right decision. Perhaps these tears and desolate energy would only worsen her feelings of loss. Then the first speaker walked out on stage. He stood at the microphone, took a piece of notebook paper out of his pocket and began to read The Dash poem. This, in itself, would not be a grand coincidence if the young man speaking had not been donning a bright yellow smiley face t-shirt. The mother said right there she knew. She knew with certainty that this was a sign from her son reaching out to her, sending his love, and telling her that he was alright and in time, she would be, too.

Though The Dash represents that little line in between the dates of birth and death, the poem wasn’t written about death. It was written about LIFE. Your date of birth is known, followed by the dash, and the latter date no one can anticipate. That little line in between those two dates stands for everything that transpires, representing in a single stroke all the laughter, the love, the tears, the joy…the life we experience.

LIVE YOUR DASH!

Linda Ellis
www.Linda-Ellis.com

The Ties that Bind

The Ties that Bind
copyright 2017 Linda Ellis

I am visiting a beautiful woman in Tennessee, now in her eighties, a relative of my husband’s family whom I have been blessed to come to know. For years, I had admired her outer beauty and grace, and as time passed, her inner beauty somehow surpassed both.

As I wrote about in another story, some people are truly genuine, and others attempt to be authentic.   But sincerity is something you cannot forge and subsequently replicate. True hearts shine through and are clearly recognizable, even to strangers. It’s an aura, a sense reaching beyond our five senses, a warmth that is comprised of compassion and love. When you meet someone who possesses this warmth, you feel it enter into your soul. This woman is filled with that loving warmth and it radiates around her as it touches the lives and souls of those fortunate enough to make her acquaintance.

Sadly, she had lost her husband the year before our visit. They were married 64 years. Her childhood memories are the only ones remaining in her mind that don’t include her beloved husband. Their two lives were one for most of her lifetime, and his. To detail such a love story would require writing another book entirely.

She took me by the hand and said she wanted to show me something. We walked into a back guest bedroom and I stood amazed at what I saw. I was suddenly in awe of something creative and beautiful as tears filled my eyes. Her husband had left a collection of more than 100 neckties, many he’d worn to church every Sunday. She said through her tears, that they still held the scent of his cologne and she just couldn’t bear to part with them.  So they were meticulously stitched into the most meaningful handmade work of art I'd ever seen.

Often, I write about “things.” Things we collect in our lives and how we often attribute too much value to our things. But some things…some things are an exception, representing remnants of the lives we live and these indeed hold immeasurable value. These things in fact, are invaluable, precious, priceless. These things have a unique ability to bind us to our past, as though memories are physically housed in the fabric of their composition.

I suspect when she is home alone, surrounded by the thousands of memories that reside around every corner of the home they shared, that placing her hands upon this bedspread temporarily eliminates the ethereal boundary that exists between them and thus, binds her to her precious husband. This item, though earthly and tangible, represents the invisible link that exists to continually join their hearts -- the connection that will someday lead them to each other once again as they unite to continue their journey together.

 

Linda Ellis

www.Linda-Ellis.com

copyright 2017