To the editor:

I didn’t think it would be difficult when I agreed to write a short article sharing some of my thoughts and memories about the Marshall Area YMCA. As it turns out, though I have over a decade of experience with the Y, working in many departments for the first 13 years it was open, I don’t have a lot of clear memories about it.

That bothered me at first. I spent several days thinking, trying to come up with stories. But then I realized that the beauty of our small town Y is that I don’t remember much about it. I don’t have a lot of memories of the building or the construction. I don’t remember my first day of work there, but the last 20 years of my life have been filled with memories of, and with, people I met inside its walls.

I’ve been to birthday parties, weddings and funerals for people I wouldn’t know if it wasn’t for the Y. Friends and coworkers from the Y hosted a wedding shower and (a few years later) a baby shower for me. I have laughed with many, cried with some, and met more people than I could possibly count in the halls of that building. The Y has allowed me to watch people struggle and succeed, watch kids grow up and have their own kids–but I don’t know how that happened. Real life happens at the Y. It happens everywhere, really, but the Y gives us a place to live it together.

Memories and people are the reason I decided to start working part-time at the front desk again last November. I’ve never entered the Y, even after six years of not working there, without feeling a sense of belonging. While I have thought of a few specific memories since agreeing to write this article — like the little girl who asked our first Executive Director Theresa Lubke if I owned the Y — the specific memories are not important. The Y is just a building, but the people it brings together are, really, what makes life full. My life, for one, is much richer because of it.

Shelly Pflaum

Marshall