BYSHEBA, LLC
SARASOTA, FLORIDA

In all of Sheba Matheu’s humanist endeavors, she shares her talents and resources with children and young adults. She believes “each of us has the responsibility to engage with and positively influence our younger generations so that we can help them confidently create their paths for the future. Their future success directly impacts all of humanity.” She has decided to donate 25% of all royalties from her first book to The mission of is to provide readers with stimulating, thought provoking content that offers suggestions and interventions based on the theories of positive psychology, which is the study of how people become happier and more fulfilled. Her goal is to move readers to challenge themselves openly and honestly, reach for higher standards, enjoy the journey of life, and preserve personal happiness. To become a silent observer takes skill and tact. If I empathized with the woman in line at the grocery store who was embarrassed that she did not have enough money for her bill, or if I sympathized with the man on the street who was too ashamed to seek help, my disposition would shift both physically and mentally. I would have to leave the line at the grocery store to redirect my attentions or cross the street to avoid the homeless man. After all, what could I really do to help someone or make a difference? The emotion and sense of responsibility for humanity was so great that it consumed me with sadness. So I did what I knew best, I remained silent. I searched for various forms of expression that would allow me the time I needed to wrestle with my thoughts, formulate next steps and put my emotions to rest. Whether I chose to paint a canvas, sew a garment or design a dress, I felt that the act of creating satisfied the unexplainable urge to express myself. This is still true today. Creativity serves my deepest desires for resolution or realization. Writing gives me the freedom to explore the places I could not reach with mere fleeting thought. The words on the screen or on paper ground my transient emotion and make it tangible in black and white. Those feelings turned into words turned into emotion remain trapped on a paper or screen; helpless and small. I am not powerless next to my emotions. When I write I become one with my cognitions and connect to very reason the thought exists. I do not struggle or agonize when I write. Instead, I give. I share, as a philanthropist would share of his or her experiences and life lessons to help someone in need or serve humanity in general. As a philanthropist, sharing my thought capital through writing, I explore, muse, uncover, rediscover, search, hypothesize, analyze and edit toward mental clarity. Through writing, I offer my personal insight selflessly and I achieve resolution or realization selfishly. When I write I can choose to be whomever I want. Sometimes the struggles I uncover are multifaceted and too painful to endure. During those times I tell my story with distance between the words of the story and my feelings. Through my story I can pity the protagonist from afar as if I have never experienced such anguish at the hands of the antagonist. Then I can provide words of wisdom like a detached stranger offering advice to co-worker or a new friend. I can proceed with the caution I may not have had in the heat of the moments past or with the empathy that had escaped me. Yet, other times the stories are so important that documentation or a clear position becomes the only reason to write. I choose to write because I fear that I may one day forget or lose the blessing of memory therefore I must write. I understood, as a child, that once I am gone from this earth my thoughts would go with me. Then what? What will my family remember about me? What will my daughter understand? What will my husband discover? Writing provides us all with longevity. I must write to articulate my appreciation and gratitude to those who have effortlessly given so much of themselves to me, for me, so that I could simply be me. If I were a plain white piece of paper filled with the strength of black letters, I would be thankful for the margins that help shape me, the title that defines my content and the sub-titles given by my family, that suggest where I have been and where I am going. I am also thankful for the indentations that mark the transitions and triumphs in my life. The words help articulate my very being and the spaces represent the private places in my mind that I hold dear. Every letter indicates a point in time which I have been moved by a loved one’s life experience, touched by a strangers act of kindness or uplifted by my memories of compassion. I do not whimsically choose to write. I Must Write is to create lasting positive images for all mothers and daughters: ones that juxtapose the negative depictions of women in history and highlight our instrumental influence with our families and society at large. With the help of illustrator Meredith Rushing and editor Emily Leinfuss I have created a family keepsake for all families. The story shares the heartfelt intentions of a loving mother who wishes to impart her family secrets of womanhood to her doting daughter. My motivation for this project began with my motherly quest to create a project that supported my daughter’s youthful mission to understand the world in which she lives by creating images in her likeness and combining educational content that valuable to her at any age. The process of working with my daughter to initiate and then complete the project has been quite the wonderful adventure – from storyboarding drafts by playing dress-up in our library at home, to discussing each line with a focus on research and inquiry. I believe that as adults, it is our responsibility to lead younger generations by setting examples of the behavior expect from them. Reading together and helping children comprehend the texts we read must be a part of our every day lives so that our children maintain their love of learning more everyday. As adults we are beholden to nurture and guide transitions from childhood to adulthood by leading that path. This path progresses from the child being a student of life and the parents as the professors to the child emerging as professor of life responsible for teaching younger generations.