Not only do they spend precious moments every week typing up the seniors' stories and working on next steps for our growing project, they also tolerate my rapid fire of random ideas, and encourage me when I feel overwhelmed. Well, in today’s blog post, I’d like to introduce you to Amy, who works on this project as our copyediting coordinator. She works so hard on this project, and with so much joy, that I gotta steal a quote FROM her to describe her (this is something she emailed to me about one of our copyeditors this week, which just goes to show what a caring leader she is): “Wow, this is what I can dedication.”
Here are a few more words from Amy about her experience on the project and also a story she wrote, when she came to class a couple weeks ago.
As a reluctant, up and coming senior citizen I decided to start involving myself with the senior center in Philadelphia. I chose volunteer work as one of the things to continue to do in my life and found myself on the editing end of a project you may know as "The Best Day of My Life So Far". After establishing myself in the area of editing and assisting where I can, it came to my attention that I actually had met some of the folks whose stories you read. Since I don't frequent the senior center and have been out of touch with those folks, I decided to show up for a writing session. I was so inspired by this process and these great writers that I decided to submit my own little story. I hope I can submit others in the near future. Enjoy.
- Amy Henson, Volunteer
Amy Henson
April 29, 2010
Piling into the Car
As often happened in our family, a family trip started out in our old jalopy. There were probably 7 kids in the family at this point and all but the baby went onto the back seat. There were no seat belts in those days so often one of us was allowed to sit on the backseat floor on the hump.
Right before we pulled off, I told my mom something seemed a little strange, maybe someone was missing. She didn’t think so and shortly thereafter dad started to pull away. As the car moved ahead I realized that there was a silhouette in the bathroom window. Suddenly, the car stopped and everyone looked up to see an anxiety filled sister staring back at us.
I am not sure that my sister ever got over being left behind, well almost…
Just one of those things that happen…