Tag Archives: Chapter excerpt

Chapter 11. A different ending

3 minute read

Wearing my “promoting” hat instead of my “writing” bandanna is way out of my comfort zone! I don’t like selling anything, but this book was my work for sixteen years; and now, I really want this brutally sad but beautiful story to find those who need it. Maybe that’s you? Maybe it’s someone you know, support, or counsel? A friend, a neighbor, a family member? Or maybe you know me, and knew Sam, but don’t know the whole story. I hope you’ll read it.

about this chapter

One of the reasons I wrote this book: I needed our story to end differently.

I always knew what I was writing to, what the ending of this story would be: my beautiful boy Sam would live, stay alive, through the power and magic of words.

Chapter 11. A Different Ending is set eleven years after Sam’s death, in May 2018.

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It’s the little BIG things

reading time 2 minutes

Then: Sam’s Green Day CD

I remember after we left the store, on the ride home, how upset Sam got while we were listening to his new Green Day CD, the one he’d begged me to buy.

“Dad’s gonna kill me!” He started crying. “Mommy, I didn’t know that song had a bad word in it.”

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National Read A Book Day

Today is NATIONAL READ A BOOK DAY.

Reading is the perfect way . . .

  • to escape all the noise and find ourselves (or lose ourselves) in a good book.
  • to see and improve ourselves.
  • to fight depression.
  • to prevent cognitive decline.
  • to expand our ability to empathize with other people.
  • to, I would argue, help us to feel less alone in whatever it is we’ve been through or are going through.

This chapter excerpt below from my book Willower: rewriting life after unimaginable loss (to be released this October) , I think, is a perfect sampling to use today for National Read A Book Day.

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254 days after…

my dad

September 1, 2023. Today would be my dad’s 88th birthday. He died at what today we think of as fairly young: 72.

A few months ago, 60 days to be exact (I’m journaling now, so I see that it was July 3), my father surprised me in a dream. I was lost (in this dream), wondering where I was—who I was anymore. Feeling alone, always alone. When I turned around, my father was there. And we hugged, and I wasn’t alone. I was so excited to see him I woke up. And then he was gone.

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