A Special Tribute to My Son and Maple Syrup
In the late summer of 2014 I got the following email from The Wild Center in Tupper Lake.
The Center for Digital Storytelling – a professional and internationally recognized organization - will be hosting a small workshop September 10 – 11 at The Wild Center in Tupper Lake. The Wild Center is offering an unique opportunity to tell & record your maple story through video & story, with the Center for Digital Storytelling http://storycenter.org/ and as someone we have worked with over the past few years through our maple project, we would love for you to join us! These stories can then be shared via your website or through social media as well as a personal archive. This workshop is being made possible through the Institute of Museum and Library Services which has helped support our Community Maple Project and document the Northern New York Maple Project and the work we’ve done the last few years. There is no cost to participate!
I’d had a pretty busy summer and the idea of spending two days at the Wild Center didn’t really appeal to me so I ignored the email. Thankfully my friend Jen Kretser, who I’ve worked with on numerous projects including maple syrup producing projects, followed up and really encouraged me to attend. I couldn’t turn Jen down so I committed to attending. I received information about the workshop that encouraged us to come up with an idea for telling our maple syrup story. I couldn’t come up with any ideas but I let the thought bounce around my head for the days leading up to the workshop. The night before the workshop the idea of somehow connecting it to my son Eli, who died in a car accident in 2012, came to me. It was, after all, Eli’s death that both directly and indirectly committed me to producing maple syrup on a larger scale than we had before. The project to produce maple syrup, and all that it entails, became a wonderful distraction to Eli’s death.
The question was, how do I create a video that celebrates both maple syrup and Eli’s life without being too morbid, too sad, and too self serving? When I told folks at the workshop my idea, one of the facilitators, Allison Myers, suggested I write a letter to Eli. I thought it would be too hard and instead just wrote my story about Eli and maple syrup. I recorded it that afternoon and while I thought it was pretty good, the idea of writing Eli a letter gnawed at me and that night I went home and wrote the letter. My younger son Dustin gave me some great feedback on it as did Allison and with Allison’s help I was able to record the story, although not without some fits and starts. It wasn’t easy.
Allison took my photos and the videos Dustin had recorded the previous winter and produced the final product. The pain will always be there for me but I can now watch the video and celebrate Eli’s life and the remarkable journey of maple syrup making while only shedding a few tears. Please watch it in the spirit for which it is intended, as a celebration of Eli and Maple Syrup.
I hope you enjoy it.
Special thanks to Dustin Drury, Allison Myers, Phyliss Ellsworth-Drury, Carmen Ordonez, and all the staff at the Wild Center.
The Center for Digital Storytelling – a professional and internationally recognized organization - will be hosting a small workshop September 10 – 11 at The Wild Center in Tupper Lake. The Wild Center is offering an unique opportunity to tell & record your maple story through video & story, with the Center for Digital Storytelling http://storycenter.org/ and as someone we have worked with over the past few years through our maple project, we would love for you to join us! These stories can then be shared via your website or through social media as well as a personal archive. This workshop is being made possible through the Institute of Museum and Library Services which has helped support our Community Maple Project and document the Northern New York Maple Project and the work we’ve done the last few years. There is no cost to participate!
I’d had a pretty busy summer and the idea of spending two days at the Wild Center didn’t really appeal to me so I ignored the email. Thankfully my friend Jen Kretser, who I’ve worked with on numerous projects including maple syrup producing projects, followed up and really encouraged me to attend. I couldn’t turn Jen down so I committed to attending. I received information about the workshop that encouraged us to come up with an idea for telling our maple syrup story. I couldn’t come up with any ideas but I let the thought bounce around my head for the days leading up to the workshop. The night before the workshop the idea of somehow connecting it to my son Eli, who died in a car accident in 2012, came to me. It was, after all, Eli’s death that both directly and indirectly committed me to producing maple syrup on a larger scale than we had before. The project to produce maple syrup, and all that it entails, became a wonderful distraction to Eli’s death.
The question was, how do I create a video that celebrates both maple syrup and Eli’s life without being too morbid, too sad, and too self serving? When I told folks at the workshop my idea, one of the facilitators, Allison Myers, suggested I write a letter to Eli. I thought it would be too hard and instead just wrote my story about Eli and maple syrup. I recorded it that afternoon and while I thought it was pretty good, the idea of writing Eli a letter gnawed at me and that night I went home and wrote the letter. My younger son Dustin gave me some great feedback on it as did Allison and with Allison’s help I was able to record the story, although not without some fits and starts. It wasn’t easy.
Allison took my photos and the videos Dustin had recorded the previous winter and produced the final product. The pain will always be there for me but I can now watch the video and celebrate Eli’s life and the remarkable journey of maple syrup making while only shedding a few tears. Please watch it in the spirit for which it is intended, as a celebration of Eli and Maple Syrup.
I hope you enjoy it.
Special thanks to Dustin Drury, Allison Myers, Phyliss Ellsworth-Drury, Carmen Ordonez, and all the staff at the Wild Center.
