And I Thought I Had a Tale to Tell

The elderly woman at the writers’ conference said she wanted to write a book about her life. “Yeah, don’t we all,” I thought. But then she told me how her story began.

She was born on the Big Island to an unwed teenager who, in her desperation, put her newborn baby in a wooden box and pushed it out into the ocean. Some fishermen heard the infant’s cries from the crate and rescued her from the waves. A kind and generous Hawaiian woman adopted her and raised her with great love.

I hope she writes that book.