Where Anna Kate Came From

She started out as my daughter.

I wrote the poem years ago, before I ever stood in front of a classroom, and the girl on the dock was Aleigha. Not by name — the name in the poem was Anna Kate from the start — but every time I read it back, I was picturing my little girl.

Then I became a teacher, and years later a little red-headed girl named Maddie read it.

It wasn’t a book yet. It was just a poem I’d written and hung onto. And Maddie read it and cried — not because anything sad happens in it, but because she caught the story underneath the story. Someone needing help. Someone showing up. Being there right on time.

I hadn’t told her that was the point. She just found it.

That’s the moment Anna Kate stopped being only my daughter. She became a girl any child could stand inside — a girl stranded at the edge of the water, watching for help she has no reason to expect. Aleigha gave me the character. Maddie showed me what the character was for.

Random Gamp comes around the bend on a raft of rope and wood with a red umbrella over his head, and he doesn’t ask what she’s done to deserve the ride. He just takes her across. That’s the whole book, and a sixteen-year-old understood it before I did.

Anna Kate and the River Kite is available signed, or on Amazon.