Old Order Mennonite Memoirs

The two facing pages in the Ideals magazine lying beside me are black, but offsetting the darkness is a bough of tiny green leaves mingling with pink apple blossoms. In a collision of seasons, a light snow clings to the new life. Droplets, like tears, quiver from the flowers and sparkle like diamonds on the black page. It’s beautiful, this blending of life and death, summer and winter, a moment in life caught on paper and captured for publication in 2004 for me to enjoy, years later.

Perhaps even more beautiful is the poetry on each page. In white letters the poem, “In March,” was wr...