Tag: life influences

So many of you said I needed to write about those days and I finally have. I’ve signed the contract and the book should be available early this fall. Some of the content was written as long ago as childhood and high school! In this hybrid memoir I piece together my story (that in so many ways is actually our story), using captivating descriptions of real events expressed in prose and poetry. I describe how early experiences and environment shape our beliefs of who we are, what we make of our world, and what we can become. Even if you are not a BHS or West End friend there are other themes in this book that will appeal to anyone who likes to read about:

PART 1: PEOPLE LIKE US LIVED IN IDYLLIC WEST END.  A dirt yard, Gordon Street, Little Golden Books

PART 2: PEOPLE LIKE US -WHO ARE WE? Leaving West End “proper” to move “out.” Elementary school, family dynamics, beginning to write.

PART 3: PEOPLE LIKE US HAVE INFLUENCES THAT LAST A LIFETIME West End Baptist Church, Brown High School, coming of age in the 1960s, civil rights, peace and love hippie culture, the Vietnam War.

PART 4: PEOPLE LIKE US WRITE Journalism, political and social consciousness, using my writing to speak out, teenaged angst of first love, spiritual awakening.

PART 5: PEOPLE LIKE US LEAVE HOME AND MARRY Skipping senior year of high school, going to college, politics and life beyond my immediate neighborhood, moving from boyfriends to marry the man of my dreams, the naïve little girl who married at eighteen becomes a woman in the real world.

PART 6: PEOPLE LIKE US GO TO WORK AND STICK TO THEIR CONVICTIONS Different jobs while raising a family, difficulty balancing convictions about right and wrong with the realities of organizational mores.

PART 7: PEOPLE LIKE US ACHIEVE GOALS Nearly defeated by stymied career advancement, dogged pursuit of advanced degrees, family circumstances, and health crises, yet these defeats bring redirection. Reaching a lifelong goal: teaching teacher education students in both undergraduate and graduate education programs as well as growing personal satisfaction in reviving my creative writing.

PART 8: PEOPLE LIKE US ENCOUNTER TRAGEDYJust when life is settling into a peaceful existence, my middle son, Jay, is killed in an automobile accident only weeks before his wedding. This defeat is like no other and I don’t know if I can find a way out of the darkness.

PART 9: PEOPLE LIKE US SPEND TIME IN THE VALLEY OF DEATH Death is not done with me. Both of my other sons bear the deaths of unborn children. Bearing their grief and my own is unfathomable. I am sickened by the events of January 6, 2021, and grieve and fear my country’s future. When my husband Joe, a healthy and athletic 77-year-old, lies down to rest after a run and never awakens, I am stunned.

PART 10: PEOPLE LIKE US WANT TO GIVE UP Going through the motions of living. I believe in life after death but am so overwhelmed with the defeat of grief that I can’t seem to overcome or redirect. I consider the promise of forever sleep.

PART 11: PEOPLE LIKE US REINVENT THEMSELVES With divine intervention, I reinvent myself. Although sometimes I backslide into a pity party of wanting to end it all, I can usually write my way out of that darkness. My ultimate achievement? Realizing that worthiness, acceptance, validation, and love are gifts of God and must come from realizing him within myself.