She laughed to keep from crying, and it became a way of life as she enriched millions of lives, including mine.
Even though I never met her, before she died in 1996, she will forever live in my heart.
The legacy of Erma Bombeck lives on because she not only laughed to keep from crying but she turned that laughter into words to uplift and feed the spirits of millions.
She laughed to keep from crying because her tears began early when her father came home from work one day, went into the hospital, and died the following day.
She was nine years old.
Erma was left to a mother who grew up in an orphanage, the same as I did, after the death of my father. Erma saw her mother go bankrupt, losing all of their worldly possessions.
Erma was strengthened by using her talents, by honing her skills, as a writer, that began in a Dayton, Ohio, junior high school paper.
`She found humor to be a way of dealing with her life — of coping with a step father who she long resented before she finally let go and realized how much he loved her as his own.
She first wrote obituaries, and once commented that she could make them die in alphabetical order. She wrote for a local newspaper before gaining national syndication.
I, too, wrote to keep from crying after I suffered a nervous breakdown in Mountain Home, Arkansas, after one too many moves as a minister’s wife in 1981. I wrote to survive.
I wrote to Erma because I instinctively knew that I needed a mentor, someone far more successful than myself who would encourage me in my wild pursuit as a writer.
She always wrote back, herself, not through a secretary.
She encouraged me. She knew what she was doing!
Writing to Erma became a turning point in my life!
With each letter I was strengthened. I jumped for joy! I went into orbit with her words of encouragement.
Once she said, “If you have talent, it can’t be held down.” Another time she said “Just think what you could write if you gave up defrosting and flushing.” And she was known to say “If you do housework right it will kill you!” She also said, “Nothing would please me more than seeing Sarah Hudson Pierce’s picture on a book jacket.” Once she wrote “it’s not the money you make but knowing that your words have reached people you will never meet.”
Although I’d published numerous poems and columns for publications that paid in copies only, it wasn’t until late 1986 I finally sold my first poem for $5.
I sent her a photocopy of that check. She quickly wrote back and told me that I’d inspired her February 26 1986, syndicated column that was published in over nine hundred newspapers.
I was ecstatic!
I knew I’d make it with her encouragement.
Erma made a difference to everyone she touched.
Contact Sarah at [email protected]