When I was six years old, my father sat me on his lap and told me he was going back to Viet Nam. He said if he didn’t go back, little children just like me would be made into slaves or killed. He said he hated to leave us again, but he had to help save these children.

I have lived all over the world as an officer’s brat and witnessed the traumatic adjustments of veterans returning from battle and the sometimes devastating transition to civilian life. I watch in amazement as my mother deals with the many facets of being a veteran’s widow. I personally support two veteran charities – one of which just received the first 2009 CNN Hero award – Stand Down House. The other charity is the Prayer Shawls for Fallen Soldiers’ Families organization.

I am experienced in veteran issues as a daughter, sister, neighbor, teacher, co-worker, supporter, and patriot. As the editor of BellaOnline’s Veterans site, I am proud to serve as an advocate for women whose lives are tapped by the daily interests, issues and challenges of veterans.

I have been an educator since 1982, teaching all elementary grades and subjects as well as English as a second language and citizenship to adults. For the last decade, I have been a consultant for teachers who have Gifted students at the middle and high school level including teen parent centers, vocational and alternative schools, and jails.

In my spare time, I am the facilitator of Writers for All Seasons and a member of the American Legion Auxilliary, the Presbyterian Writers Guild and Critters.org. I have been published in the Lakeland Ledger, Polk County Democrat, World Treasury of Golden Poems, Youth Alive, Wesleyan Magazine and the Polk County Poetry Anthology. I publish a weekly national e-newsletter as facilitator of the McLeod Presbyterian Prayer Shawl Ministry and a regional e-newletter as the facilitator of Writers for All Seasons. I also make and sell hand-crocheted items. I sing, garden organically, cook naturally, and make my own soap, salves, candles, and teas. I walk my dog Daisy and play with Daisy’s cats Moonbeam & Gilbert and change my fish filter. (Admit it, there’s really not much else to do with fish in an aquarium . . .) I raise African violets and orchids and am not ashamed to confess that I’m a rose rustler.

One of my favorite sayings is from Beowulf, “Each of us must look to death and he who can should do mighty deeds before it comes.”

Just like everybody else in this world, I’ve tasted death and despair and betrayal and injustice and heart-ache and unanswerable questions. And still I find grace in the eternity of nature, joy in the love of friends, and hope in each word I type, because each word leads to another and together they create a life that can be shared with many and will live on beyond my physical mortality.

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