Creative Lady

Creative Lady is a book about Helen Tochen, a lady of many talents who has never talked about those talents. It is time for me, as her loving husband, to tell her story. A dear friend, who was at our wedding over fifty years ago, commented, Helen is finally getting her due. This book is a biography, a chronicle, a lyric in a life that is a beautiful song. Helen has lived a full life as a physician, as a loving daughter, mom, and wife, and as a creative lady. I wish to honor her and to marvel at the rich inner life that is the source of her creativity. She is full of resolve, of a wish to achieve, of a wish to create! At age nine, she knew she would be a physician—and she made it happen, graduating with honors from medical school. At age 12, she was studying piano at the family home in Hong Kong, where they had immigrated from Tientsin, China. She would later win honors playing piano in a classical music competition playing very difficult pieces with elan. At age 15, she studied painting with a Chinese master painter, and now in her senior years she is
painting abstract art pieces of beauty. Free Spirit and Poets Choice publisher Akshay Sonthalia commented on Helen’s dreams to achieve while still a young girl, saying, such clarity of vision and focus in life is rare to come by. As a pediatrician retired for twenty-five years, she has been approached while shopping by smiling family members of old patients. One lady greeted her, saying, Hello, Dr. Tochen, you took care of my little girl and she loves you! She will be so excited to hear I ran into you. As a mom, she was always loving, always engaged with the children, but as our daughter said of her mother, if I needed support, mom could turn into fierce mom! Why do I write now? My desire to write about my wife crystallized when she was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s eight years ago. I can chronicle the great losses in her impactful life. This lady deserves to be seen, she deserves to be heard, she deserves to be honored. Never ignored! People should say with love, I see her.