And So it Will Be

My grandmother, Margaret ‘Peggy’ Ritter, doing what she loved.

Sometimes time must pass before you can look back on something and see it against the sky. Writing forces that very act. Looking back. My grandmother’s funeral was brushed with the grace of time. It was a celebration of her life. Had we come together too soon, the word celebration might have felt insensitive, even stinging, as it hit the raw pain of grief.  But now, months later, in the space of looking back to find the words, music, pictures, and paint shades to honor her – the word celebration gave us permission.  Many would speak that day about my grandmother’s love of music. How she went to Juilliard and how the piano was at the heart of 100 years well-lived. Her four daughters each chose a love of hers and wove stories of memory and gratitude for loves passed on. Gentle lullabies that lulled an anxious child to sleep, books that opened new worlds, art that inspired, family, laughter, friendship…Her, and now their gifts, were many.

My gift would be a poem, but it would need a bit of introducing. Tenderness deserves an introduction, I figured. But at the heart of it, I wanted to hold on to that moment with her. I wanted the world to know what I had noticed.

…as a child, you could often find me in her bedroom when the world felt too noisy for me. I was, am, sensitive. She was, is, too.

Somehow, she always knew when I was back there. I know now that it is because she was a noticer. She wouldn’t come rushing back straight away. She likely knew to give me space. But somehow, at just around the time when tears might start to push through, she would appear. “Are you okay, luvie?” she would say. I’m not sure if she always said it out loud. But I heard it and felt it every time.

We all have our stories of Nanny’s sensitive moments. She also tucked away in back rooms from time to time. Those afternoon naps. It wasn’t always Nanny coming to check in on me. I learned to wait a few minutes as she had always done. I learned to say “Are you okay, luvie” without words. I learned to speak from the heart.

Later, when I read my poem, I thought of her as the words took flight in and around the beauty in that room - the beauty of her life. With every word I wrote and spoke, I noticed that she was still with me.

And so, it will be. And so, it will be.

  - Erin Frankel

I Wanted To Add More Words

I haven’t written anything long in a while. I’m in the business of short. I’m a picture book author. Over my desk hangs the quote that keeps me on track when I find myself getting too wordy: You know it is done when you can’t take anything away. Could two words become one? Does that sentence move the story along? What am I really trying to say? 

But lately, I don’t want to take words away. I want to add more. More words to tell you how the sunset slipped by. How I saw it from the side of my eye at my mother’s house while visiting with old friends and how I wanted to run down to the lake before it disappeared into itself, but I did not. And how when I did run to it a few days later, my beautiful daughters were already there, gently kayaking into its sherbet swirls – and I into them. And how when I turned around, the most magnificent full moon was making its entrance between the cedars and lake houses, and I didn’t know which way to turn. How could one sky and three women hold so much? Beauty.  

I want to add more words. Words to tell you how I sat across from someone a few days ago. Someone I once saw every day, then once a week, then once a month, then year. Then not for a long time. Until the other day. And how I searched for the person I once knew when the days ran more closely together and words didn’t stand in our way. Not all words can be taken away. Not everything can be done. And yet there I was. We both were. 

Words to tell you that I didn’t just want to listen to the cry of the peacock at the farm yesterday. When I looked up and saw him perched high in the branches of the leafy tree, I wanted to know how. How did it get there? So big, yet perched in that small busy space that is the heart of the tree. And whether his cry was to remind me to keep questioning. Or to find my own way into these spaces - wherever home may be. 

As I write, a small bird glides over the water before me on a lake that welcomes me back each time. Even if only in my mind. This bird is dancing with the sky. I can fly. I can fly. Up, then down. In, around. He is performing for himself, and I happen to be watching. And yet, in this whole stretch of shimmering lake, the bird has chosen this space right before me to do this dance. And for that, I have no answer. I cannot shorten what I do not know. Mystery grows. Gets added to. Looms beyond words. Far beyond the thirty-two pages that usually frame the work I do. 

At my feet sit two doggies. They are happy I have chosen this place to write. Slowly. To get. Long.  Keep adding, they say. Once she finishes, it will be back up to the house. But this, THIS is more. Look, here it comes again. That bird. 

- Erin Frankel

Remembering You

I could see the tree. Your tree. Our tree. I pictured you there, Smiling back at me -Remembering Barkley - Albert Whitman & Company

Welcome, my friends. Maybe you have come here thinking of someone you love and miss. If so, you aren’t alone. This is a special post dedicated to remembering. Before our dog Bear passed away (you’ll find him below with Pumpkin - who is Barkley in my picture book Remembering Barkley), I told him that I would put him down in words so that others could know how his love and friendship helped our family get through when we were missing Pumpkin. I would like to think that our love also helped Bear when he was feeling sad. Isn’t that what life is all about - being there for each other?

When our neighbors tragically lost their dog, Anna, in a house fire a few years ago, I knew it was time to bring the story out of the drawer so that I could put it in the hands of others - just as I had promised Bear years back. Words long to heal.

Thanks to everyone who shared a picture and a memory with me. It isn’t always easy looking back, I know. The truth is, words cannot always capture everything - but my life’s work is to help us feel closer by trying. And so, I dedicate this poem, Remembering You, to those we love and miss. I hope you find your loved ones in these words and in the places you loved together. May their memories bring us joy as we go forward and do what they taught us best: love.

Bear and Pumpkin

Pumpkin and Gabby

Alvaro and Bear

Our neighbor Anna

Anna

Ashlyn and Anna

Trixie

Felix

Ditto

Sadie and Roxy

Bella

Celeste

Baga and Sunny

Frizzy

Babe

Maddie and Hannah

Obie

Hannah

Luna

Babe, Connie, and Spunkie

Ronix

Brandy

Lucy and Molly

Boo and Ryan

Andrew, Ryan, Buster, Jason

Dollar

Pebbles

Dollar, Barkley, Pebbles

Barkley

Barkley

Cleo

Buff

Lucy and Rachel

Layla, Lucy, Rachel, Lisa

Anna

Callie

Lily

Willie Flanagan

Lulu

Pepsi

Remembering You

Did you know that your kindness gave me hope

And how I think of you when I hear the words grace and gentle

How, when everything was changing, your soulful eyes always spoke the same message: I love you

Did you know that hugging you made me feel less sad

You, sitting on my lap, cuddling me. Cuddling each other.

Loving you made me feel happy

My favorite sight was you running free in the fields

How I hoped you would live forever, my anchor

Maybe you didn’t know that no other dog was like you - no cat the same

Maybe you didn’t know that you brought me closer. To everything.

Did you know that I wished I could have given you more time, that you hadn’t been sick - that you taught me even then (mostly then) what courage is

Did you know that I saw what a great friend you were. That I felt it, too.

When I wasn’t well - you helped me through

Did you know that remembering you hurt at first, but then one day when I thought of something funny you did, it brought laughter

I still find you in the songs of the birds and the wind in the leaves

And when I look up at the sky at night, I find you in a poem that always comes back to me.

We find each other.

Of all the stars in the universe, if we only get a few - how lucky I am to have had you.

-Erin Frankel

Poor Little Bird by Erin Frankel

I’ve been wondering and worrying about animal feelings my whole life. It’s no secret in my family that I had a small infirmary in the backyard shed where I would nurse half-eaten prey (mostly birds) that my cat brought home or the occasional whole bird that had fallen from its nest.  

 As I dunked small pieces of Wonder bread into water and then into birds’ mouths, I offered words of encouragement - even though the odds weren’t good. Don’t worry, you’ll be okay. You are strong. I knew they needed every positive thought I could muster. There I was, an anxious child in a dark shed offering deep breaths and optimism to dying birds in shoeboxes, in the hopes…

 Of course, this childhood behavior is often the subject of family gatherings, and who can blame them. The stories always begin the same: Remember that time when Erin tried to save…

 I remember each time just as vividly as I remember the National Geographic animal photographs that broke my heart as a child. Sitting alone on our front door steps, magazine in hand, I cried for clubbed seals, massacred elephants, and captured whales. Why can’t they just leave the animals alone, I wondered. 

 And so, it should have come as no surprise to have heard my daughter’s voice rise above a crowd of laughing spectators who were watching a fisherman’s sand shark catch flail helplessly around on the beach. My daughter’s strong voice shouted the words I was screaming in my head. Just leave him alone! Put him back in the water! With her voice, the crowd suddenly became somber, and the fisherman returned the shark to its home. Her words had reeled the humans back to the truth of what was happening: suffering.

 As I continued my walk on the beach, I thought about the backyard-shed moments that my daughters had experienced growing up. I thought about all of the wondering we had shared over the years. Poor little bird; I feel so bad for that dog; that isn’t fair that they have him in a cage, why can’t they just leave him alone…should we say something? 

 Yes, you should say something. Isn’t that what you would want someone to do for you? To wonder about animals is to open our hearts to the feelings and suffering of others. We are all one. So, go ahead and say it. Feel it. 

 Poor little bird.

Then, do something. 

That Perfect Beam of Sunshine by Erin Frankel

Some moments stay with us for a lifetime. Some sentences never leave us. Words of love that come at life’s hardest moments are stored in the folds of our hearts in case we ever need them again. Often tucked away, each letter holding onto a piece of a memory that will live on forever but cannot possibly be sustained on the surface. Words that find their home in our hearts until they are called upon to remind us that we are quite literally held together by love. And love will get us through. 

For me, those words came many years ago as I left the hospital empty-handed, without my beautiful first-born baby. How had so much changed so quickly I thought as I moved through the hospital hallway, down the elevator, and through the doors back out into the world. Just days before I had taken this same journey heading the other direction, full of excitement, imagining how this walk would be. Son in my arms, wrapped in the blanket that had been hanging on his rocking chair at home, next to the book I had bought to read to him and the music I intended to play as he fell asleep each night. Now, I was merely moving as one leg pushed in front of the other. My husband in front, my mother behind, and I, somewhere in the middle - until that moment when I stopped and turned to look up at the window.

 I was looking up from the outside at the window that just moments before had offered a beautiful view of an English Oak and filtered a gentle beam of sunshine on his face when all was still well.  I was looking up at the window to a room that had once seemed like a postcard on the inside; a celebration that I had tried to put into writing in announcements that were now left. Incomplete. And so, I stopped and turned back to look up at that window, so that the truth of it all might sink in. So that my mind could see that the room did exist. That it wasn’t a dream. This was happening. I was on the outside now, looking in. 

 And in that moment, my mom’s words affirmed what I already instinctually knew I had to do: That’s right. Look back at that window. When I think of that time and that moment now, I find a certain strength and courage in these words that have never left me. I remember how painful it was to turn and look one last time, but I also know that in looking back, I was taking my first step in looking forward. This did happen. I was there. He was real. Love is real. And eventually, over time, affirmations would be added -  I got though.

 We never know what side we will be on, but one day, when we look back through the windows of our lives, we can know one thing for certain. We can know that the spaces we filled, were filled with love. That is what I choose to remember. That perfect beam of sunshine. 

Do You Have A Minute?

Enjoying my minute with Brea

Do You Have a Minute?

“Do you have a minute,” she asks in between author visit assemblies. “My daughter loves your books and has been looking forward to this day. She has some extra questions to ask if you have a minute.” Eyes beaming – both her daughter’s and mine – a minute won’t be enough and we both know it. But we take what we can get. We cram as much as we can into the space between one assembly and the next. We take a picture for memory’s sake, but a camera can never capture the full joy that these exchanges bring. These are the minutes that wrap around your heart for a lifetime. Sometimes they are mere seconds as kids leave the assemblies to go back to class, often stopping along the way to tell me something that that has been wrapped around their hearts. Something that our time together may have stirred. Something that they are brave enough to share in the space of so little time, but that is deserving of so much more time. Feelings, experiences, emotions that make up the minutes of their lives…of our lives. I have a story too, they tell me.  I walk with them as far as I can go, listening to the details of their stories, but we are separated all too quickly as they disappear down the hallway back into the day. Write to me and tell me about the rest of your story! I say. Everyone has a story. Everyone longs to share with someone. Do you have a minute? No better yet, do you have more?  

My Picture Book Experience

It was a weekday afternoon and my dad was coming for a visit. At least I hoped he was. I was busy getting everything set up. We never had enough time together for my liking, so I wanted it to be nice. A lot had happened in third grade that week and my dad was a good listener. I set out a plate of cheese and crackers, got us each a pretty glass and coaster, and arranged our picture books on the coffee table in front of the comfortable blue sofa that was our reading place. 

As I waited impatiently to hear his car pulling up the driveway, I looked at my arrangement. My gaze rested on the bright green cover of one of my favorite books: The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein. A sadness came over me. We had gone to the library at school that day and had ‘the talk’ about picture books. It was time, we were told, to start moving on to more complex reading.  

As I sat and waited for my dad, I closed my eyes and pictured the school library shelves with all of the thick chapter books in muted tones. I imagined myself fanning through the pages of the books in search of a picture. It wasn’t hard to imagine because that is exactly what I had done that morning when the librarian encouraged us to explore. Sometimes there was a sketch or two hidden in the pages, but most of the time there were not. And now, as I looked at the colorful picture books on the table before me, my heart ached at the thought of letting them go.  

How many times had I found myself lost in those pictures. Wrapped up. Carried away. Pulled in. Over and over and over again, each time finding something new or maybe something old that I had seen before but never in the same light. Maybe that was why they never got old to me. So why, I wondered, was there a magic age when I would suddenly be too old for them? As I waited for my dad, I wondered if he had secretly felt like the librarian. Had he been wanting to have a talk with me and tell me that It was time to move on? And if he did feel that way, then what would it mean for our time together. Picture books had always been part of our plan. That is what we did. Together. 

My dad had arrived. Hey little girl, he said lovingly as he walked in the door and gave me a hug. But I wasn’t little anymore. I looked again at the picture books on the table and suddenly felt silly. I tried to picture other fourth-graders around town doing big-kid things that afternoon. And here I was setting up a tea party for my dad with ginger ale, appetizers, and our main entertainment – a story about a boy who takes and takes and takes from a tree that gives and gives and gives. 

My dad was over the moon with the snack selection. As he munched I caught him up on school and the life of a fourth-grader. I told him that I was worried about my brother who was being bullied and how I missed my old house by the beach and my old friends. When the last cracker was gone, and we were ready to slip into another world, he reached for The Giving Tree, knowing that it was my favorite. A tear rolled down my cheek. 

We won’t be able to do this forever, Dad. I’m going to miss reading picture books with you.

As hard as I try to remember, I don’t know what my dad said that day in response, but I do remember that we kept on reading that day and for many visits after. I know that I sat next to him instead of on his lap and that we added some bigger books in that still had pictures. I also know that before long, many of those once dreaded books without pictures carried me away and pulled me in, but never quite like those picture books of my childhood. After all, how could they? Picture books had been an experience. 

My mom’s theatrical interpretation of The Lorax, her thoughtful and empathetic readings about the boy who was bullied for taking ballet lessons, the way she stopped on the page while we searched for Sylvester in Sylvester and The Magic Pebble. And my dad, with his slow and poetic reading of The Giving Tree. The spaces between words in this book seemed to narrow the spaces that were growing between us as I grew up. For a story riddled with interpretations, there was only one way that I ‘read’ the story, and it remains unchanged:

At the end of the day, nothing material matters. All along, the truest gift that we can give each other is the gift of time and togetherness. Silverstein, or was it the tree, said it best: 

Come Boy, sit down. Sit down and rest.

And the boy did.

And the tree was happy.

Maybe it will come as no surprise that I grew up to be a picture book author. I believe that magic happens when children of all ages and adults everywhere come and sit for a while. Together. I believe in picture books. Forever.