Sue Massey - Letter from the Heart: The Real Story Behind the Iconic Photograph

The wind lifts us, a tiny brown seed attached to a plume, like a hot-air balloons woven basket, into an endless sea of blue. A seed of hope, of what is to come.

With me, in flight, my family sails in the basket of life we call home. The wind guides us, her voice, our faith, sometimes a strong gust, and sometimes a gentle breeze, always with us.

My love, like the span of the sky, has no boundaries.

Letter from the Heart, dedicated to Kenny, Kelli, Danelle, Corey, Maron, and Naomi.

* * *

Decades ago, I wrote a simple letter never dreaming it would place my family and me on national TV and change our lives forever. My father-in-law told me anybody who could write like that needed to pursue it. With his urging, I signed up for a writing class taught by Ben Logan, author of The Land Remembers . During the class, Ben learned of my story. He told me I had a book and paired me with an accomplished writer in the class to help me create it.

I had very little experience with writing and little perspective on my familys situation. The co-author was a nice man, willing to take on the gigantic task of writing a manuscript with a young woman who had more stories and feelings than she knew what to do with. Above all, it was a womans story, a narrative of day-to-day struggles, of babies, home and hearth, the constant juggling of household responsibilities, the search for a creative outlet, desperate feminist yearnings while brushed with fame under the most trying circumstances.

The writing drafts went back and forth, back and forth, and sometime during the process, my voice was lost, or perhaps my voice was just beginning to develop. I sent it off to several publishers and agents and eventually placed it on a shelf in the basement, too busy meeting family obligations to take on one more task.

In my heart, I never truly gave it up; I just placed it on hold. I was stretched thin raising five kids, working at a demanding job, and managing a household. Looking back, Im glad the manuscript wasnt published, for there was so much of my life yet to unfold as a result of the adversities that were yet to come. And in learning to embrace lifes challenges and acquiring coping skills, I would discover my voice.

Years later, I was thrust into a job that I never would have predicted. I was working as a part-time receptionist when my manager encouraged me to consider the position of communications editor. Given my love for writing and people, she was confident in my ability to grow into the position. To my amazement, it was one of the best decisions in my lifetime. It opened my eyes to the inner workings of a large corporation, one that would eventually guide me into becoming a managing partner-owner with my husband in our own small business.

One of the many perks of that wonderful job was a paid membership in a professional organization, so I joined Women in Communications. There I met and became friends with a writer and editor named Jill Muehrcke. She and the other members of the organization taught me a great deal and spurred my interest in writing.

When I told Jill that Id decided to take a new stab at writing my memoir, she offered to edit it for me. Thus began a friendship, adventure, and collaboration that continue to this day.

Immediately I could sense that Jill understood my story on a deep level. She saw that it was, at its core, a love story. Underneath the train of tragedies, catastrophes, and misadventures we endured was, always, the love my husband and I had for each other, which spilled over into our devotion to our family. Our struggles did not define us; they were only the stage upon which our deep love unfolded. What was important was how we handled the adversities that came our way. The plot of our life together may be unique, but all of us have the ability to become better people, not allowing our circumstances to define our futures.

Jill also understood the themes that ran through my story the motifs of nature, the elements, home, family, metamorphosis and helped tease out the parts that were hard for me to write about the discovery of mental illnesses, disabilities, and imperfections I had tried to hide from everyone, including myself, the monsters that lived deep inside me.

Jill and I became a close working team. She was not only my editor; she was my saving grace. She was like a skilled therapist who listened to the things I could not rationalize about myself and still loved and accepted me. As she and I together coaxed my demons out of hiding, the epiphanies that occurred were life-changing. Finally, the end of the story became clear, and it was far more triumphant than either of us had ever expected. I am still in utter awe today of what flowed out my fingertips and left me free to open my hand and release it. It has caught the wind and disappeared into the wide open blue sky where it belongs.

* * *

Because the four elements of nature air, fire, water, and earth have always been a source of strength and guidance for me, Ive broken my story into four parts to match the four elements. Growing up on the land as I did, I found that these four essentials of life are woven into my very being.

My story begins with air. The element of air is the power of the mind, the force of intellect, inspiration, and imagination. It is ideas, knowledge, dreams, and wishes. Air is the element of new life and possibilities. Its the vital spirit passing through all things, giving life to all things, moving and filling all things: the medium that binds everything together. The wind, the sky, the birds, and the clouds are some of my most important touchstones.

But air is elusive, intangible, wispy. I begin the book with Up in the Air because thats how I was in my early life. Ive always been in the clouds, especially in my late teens and early twenties when Kenny and I were first married. The events that blindsided us in those years left me floating helplessly in the stratosphere, wondering what would become of us, whether I would ever find my place in the world.

The second element, fire, is dangerous and impulsive. It can smolder and suddenly burst. It is the destroyer. Ive titled the second part of the book Into the Fire, partly because of the way that circumstances consumed and demolished the life Kenny and I were building, leaving us with five young children in the middle of total wreckage.

And yet, paradoxically, fire is also the creator. It cooks our food, warms our homes, and fuels our passion. It can give wings of courage, compassion, and devotion. Part II, in addition to narrating the catastrophic events that toppled my world, also describes the warmth of family and hearth that were so essential in my slow recovery and rebuilding.