Earlier this week you asked us why we write. I responded with the answer of, “I write to free my thoughts and dreams”. This was accurate, but I forgot as to what sparked my love for writing way back when. Luckily for me, this writing topic helped me remember where it all began.

My aunt Annette has been an English teacher for quite some time now. She started out her career as a sub, moved on to becoming a high school English teacher and is now the head of all the English curriculums and designs them for a large high school staff across the district in California. Being an English teacher wasn’t just something she woke up one morning and decided to be. She had the passion for writing and the many styles that went along with for as long as she could remember. Some people love to write, but have a hard time capturing the readers eye and really connecting with them but this is something she has a gift with. I could talk about so many things, but here’s just one.

It was my first Christmas here in Oregon after my move from California during the summer of my seventh grade year. Although I have my mother, father and brother, all of other family remains back home in California. Leaving my family was probably one of the hardest things I have ever done and they all knew it. One person in particular though that was especially hard leaving was my aunt Annette. Knowing this, for Christmas she sent me a single gift wrapped in brick red rustic looking wrapping paper with a charcoal gray ribbon around it. I opened it up and I saw a deep orange leather journal with a bungee cord-like lock. Thinking that it would just be a blank journal, to my surprise when I opened it up, in it was a written letter from her.

After I finished reading it, I looked up at my mom with misty eyes. Never before has something touched or moved me like that piece of writing did. She wrote an inspirational piece about how moving could be hard, but even the farthest apart couldn’t change her love for me. She went on telling me she wanted me to be strong and set myself to be the best I can be at everything I do. I would’ve never thought that something like that could change my views on what one piece of writing really has the power to do. As the days past after receiving this I began to write whatever was on my mind whether it was a single word or a whole novel, I wrote it all down. I had some poetry that would just come to mind, emotions I felt whether good or bad, but this for me was like therapy. So badly would I love to have someone I can just have to listen, but the fear of loss over comes over me every time. So for me, the journal is all I have.

That following summer, I flew to California and brought my journal with me. After spending some quality time with my family as a whole I spent some by myself with my aunt. I showed her the journal she had gotten me let her read every piece whether I had felt confident about it or not. She sat there for a long while silent, examining my entries. It was so quiet I could hear her faint breathing in between the focus on my work. After about a half hour of sitting there patiently waiting for her to finish, she sat up, locked the journal and looked at me. To my surprise, I saw misty eyes. She told me that the fact of this one little piece of writing she had wrote for me created all of these pieces was all she could ask for. At that moment, just seeing how good it made her feel to see she had made a difference in my life and inspired me to write as if it was my release gave me the drive to inspire others. It was because of her that I am writing today.

Even though most may not know, writing has played a huge role in my life throughout the years. Writing is what got me through the hard times of high school, family tragedies and many more. Honestly without writing I don’t know where I would be or how I would survive without the feeling of crashing down with everything around me. I would hope that others could see the difference that writing could really make in ones life and just let them create pieces that they may not think are very good that can actually change a person’s life.