by Harvey Lieberman

I’ve written for years—essays, mostly. Some made it into The New York Times, some into Newsday, and a handful into literary journals with more editors than readers. I’ve also been rejected 15 times by The Missouri Review. That number sticks in my head more than I’d like to admit, but that’s another story.

The one I want to tell now isn’t about getting published. It’s about what happened after.

A while back, I wrote an article for Kovels’ Antique Trader, a magazine best known to the collector crowd—people who love things like commemorative plates, Bakelite radios, and Depression glass. I’d never submitted anything to them before, but I had this piece about a two-foot Italianate style ceramic vase that had belonged to my parents. With its variety of painted plants and animals and a crest from some unidentified family, it sat in the same spot in their living room for as long as I could remember.

After they died, I inherited it and kept it in my living room in a place of honor. I still remember wrapping it in an old towel and carrying it out of their house, trying not to bump it against the doorframe. For a while, it was just a decorative object that I knew was emotionally valuable to me and hoped was also valuable in money terms. Then it became something else. I couldn’t quite name it—but I knew I had to write about it.

The front of the vase

The article, entitled “What Remains,” ended up on the cover. That surprised me. It included  photos of the vase and of my parents—my son’s grandparents, though he never met them. The piece also described a museum appraisal event where I was told, kindly but clearly, that the vase wasn’t worth much. Not rare. Not antique. Not valuable to anyone but me.

Unless, of course, the buyer liked stories.

So I gave it one.

When the issue came out, I showed the digital version to my 40-year-old son. He’s got a Ph.D., sharp as they come, but not particularly drawn to my writing. Maybe it’s discomfort, or maybe it’s a kind of quiet competitiveness that neither of us talks about very much. I’ve learned not to push. He responded to the downloaded piece with a quick “Nice work,” and that was that.

But a few weeks later, he came to visit.

I handed him the magazine. Glossy cover. Thick paper. He turned it over, paused for a second, then opened it to the piece. He looked at the photos of the vase. Then at the one of his grandparents and the other of me under the author’s credit. He scanned it and quickly thumbed through the rest of the magazine.

“This is really nice,” he said. “Isn’t this magazine mostly for older people?”

He wasn’t wrong. Most of the listings are for Tiffany lamps, midcentury furniture and vintage jewelry and porcelain and also pictures of pieces from recent auctions that sold for up to a half-million dollars. But I flipped to the back of the cover and pointed out a Star Wars figure and Marvel figure among other items of interest to him. Many going for thousands.

“Every generation has its antiques,” I said.

He gave a short laugh and nodded. “Yeah, I guess you’re right.”

It wasn’t a dramatic bonding moment. He didn’t sit and read the whole thing on the spot. But something shifted. He did say, “I’ll probably read this one.”

I’ve had essays published in bigger places. But this one felt like it landed—maybe not broadly, but right where I most wanted it to.

There’s something about holding the thing. Not a link or a file, but the object. A story printed in ink, on paper you can touch and enjoy the feel, pass, leave on a table. Something you might come back to later.

In a way the article was just like the vase. Not valuable to a collector. But worth something because of where it came from, and who carried it forward.

That day, my son held the story. And I think, for the first time in a long time, he saw me in it and felt a part of our family line. He’ll probably tell the story to my grandchildren one day.