Creative Writing Corner – featuring Myra Ehrke

Each week, many of our residents meet for Creative Writing Group with Lisa McKenzie. The class offers a creative outlet and the opportunity to flex their writing muscles.

This month, we’d like to highlight a short story by Myra Ehrke:

Hooray! Kids are coming to visit. So much to do. Got to buy fresh bagels from Marx Bakery and smoked salmon for my son Jim (he’s flying here from Gainesville, Florida). Find those National Geographic magazines for my granddaughter, Amber.

Gosh, she was 8 years old when I bought her her first subscription and now, at 27 she has almost all the issues ever published.

I remember those yellow books and how I loved to look at the stunning photos inside. And read about such weird happenings that made me question the accuracy of the written word.

I would pack my suitcase (a large brown paper bag) every Friday after school, board the trolley and go to my grandparent’s home. My parents thought I was so wonderful for giving up my Fridays to turn on the apartment lights and light the stove for my grandparents on the Sabbath but I really liked going. I loved being smothered in Grandma’s embrace. She smelled like the dough rising in the kitchen. And I could count on Grandpa to be walking back and forth, wearing his prayer shawl, and praying. In spite of our soldiers fighting a war overseas to protect us, Grandpa’s prayers made me feel safer

There was a bonus too. In the corner of the living room stood a secretary, a big drop leaf desk with cabinets on top. And on the cabinet shelves were those delicious yellow books (that’s what I called the National Geographic). I would travel all over the world through those magazines. And when I grew up I would get to visit many of those places in person. And I would photograph and write magazine articles about them. And I loved it.

During my travels, I collected many works of art, and each one has a story, a memory, and now it’s time to pass these treasures on.

I want my possessions to go to people who really will appreciate them, who will enjoy them. What’s left will be sold or given away. It’s time to face mortality. And it’s hard!

Still I didn’t expect to be so emotionally conflicted. I found myself resenting my Granddaughter because she picked all the temple carvings from Burma, now known as Myanmar. She has been there recently and I know she appreciates them as art as well as history and will cherish them but I mourned their loss.

Jessie, Amber’s boyfriend of eight years, fell in love with all my camera equipment. He plans to build an old fashioned dark room. It’s sad realizing I’ll never use all that equipment again, never win another photography award.

For two weeks, I stayed depressed. I thought about how I’d parted ways with all my cameras and photo related paraphernalia. How I’d never again shoot a picture of a rhino while riding a charging elephant through the jungle. I thought about Jim adding some of my masks to his collection. And he got the painting from Australia, of Paradise Valley. On some weekends, we would camp there. It was a special place for us. We’d go tubing in the river. We’d light a campfire in the evening and Jim, my husband Chuck and I would talk, really talk, to each other about important things, funny things, about life, and Jim would serenade us on his guitar.

Now I’m back to normal again. I’m glad that the people I care about will get pleasure from my “treasures.” And it’s not their fault that I’m coming closer to the end of my time on earth. I see that I’ll live on in their memories, in the fun times we’ve had together and maybe sometimes when they look at something that used to belong to me, they will think of me.

creative writing for seniors

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