First, an apology for letting nearly two years go by without posting. Life took a terrible toll on me two years ago as my husband of nearly 40 years died in an airplane crash. Less than two weeks prior to that, my mother had passed away – gently, while holding my sister’s hand. She was nearly 101 years old, so she had lived an amazing, long life. I miss her still, but believe she’s now at eternal rest and, hopefully, reunited with my dad.
Losing a dear loved one far too soon is indescribably difficult, so I won’t say anything more here, other than to recognize I needed the past two plus years to regroup, to grieve, and to contemplate the purpose and meaning of life. One lesson I’ve learned is that equilibrium/peace of mind is a temporary state of being, and that we must embrace all the deviations and obstacles that delay our achieving it. As others before me have said, with the bitter comes the sweet, with the night comes the dawn, with the dark comes the light.
With the support and love of family and friends, I’ve been able to re-engage with writing. I’m starting to query publishers for my next YA novel, which (ironically) deals with grief. I hope my next blog post will be an announcement that I’ve found the right home for “AFTER MATT”. As a teaser, here’s my pitch from #PitMad that attracted a publisher’s attention recently:
“Teenage girl grieving her brother’s shooting death must choose between caregiving her PTSD mother or joining the sport she believes will save them all, biathlon. FALL FOR ANYTHING x WINTER OLYMPICS”.