Category: family

The BRAVE Interview #22 May 2018: Melanie Delorme

by Karen, posted in Being BRAVE, books, Brave books, Catching women being brave, Clarity, comfort, family, Interviews, relationships, The BRAVE Interviews

Welcome to this month’s BRAVE Interview with Melanie Delorme!

I am a teacher, a wife, a mother, an author who was given the role of bereaved mom in 2008 when my 8-year-old son, Garrett, was accidentally shot and killed in a hunting accident.

It would have been so easy to allow this horrific experience to define me as a grief-stricken mom for the rest of my life. I’m not sure how long it took me to realize that Garrett deserved a better legacy than that.

I also realized that healing and moving forward was my choice.

I try to choose every day to celebrate Garrett’s life and to remember that knowing him for eight years made me a better person.

I spent a lot of time writing in a journal during the first few years after Garrett’s death. I have since turned my writing into a book and published it. It is entitled, After the Flowers Die: A Handbook of Heartache, Hope and Healing After Losing a Child. I do not want any bereaved parent to ever feel alone.  I have recently created a website, promoted my book at book signings, participated in my first TV interview, participated in a live grief webinar. Currently I am working on creating a journaling course for grieving parents.

When I think about the word Brave, I realize that sometimes bravery is simply getting out of bed and facing the world every day.

Sometimes bravery feels more like survival. While I don’t feel brave every day, I will continue to choose to move forward keeping my son’s memory alive through my writing and speaking.

My website: www.MelanieDelorme.com

My book on Amazon:  After the Flowers Die: A Handbook of Heartache, Hope and Healing After Losing a Child

 

Thank you so much for sharing your story with us, Melanie!

Read the other BRAVE Interviews here: The BRAVE Interviews

IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO BE INTERVIEWED FOR THIS SERIES ABOUT SOMETHING BRAVE YOU HAVE DONE IN YOUR OWN LIFE, SEND ME AN EMAIL HERE: karen@karencreamer.com

The Annual Ides of March Quest for Fried Clams

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, Adult children, celebrations, comfort, family, good grief, quest for the best, restaurants

My dad’s last meal was fried clams.

Flashback to 1998. Dad was dying of lung cancer. The living room was dominated by the hospital bed sent by hospice once it was clear he could no longer manage the climb to the second floor bedroom. He had been in and out of consciousness for several days when he suddenly became alert again, like himself. This day also happened to be my mother’s birthday. She had died two years prior of cancer.

After he had been turning up his nose at solid food for days, he said he wanted to eat. What do you want, Dad? Whatever it is, we’ll get it.

He wanted fried clams and french fries from (the famous!) Kelly’s Roast Beef in Revere. So, my brother drove to Revere (not so very far from where we were) to get him what he wanted.

He ate and enjoyed every last bite.

And then he fell asleep, drifting into a coma from which he would not awaken. He died peacefully two days later on March 15, 1998.

Every year, I have fried clams on March 15th to commemorate this experience and to celebrate my Dad.

This year, at the recommendation of my friend Stephanie, we tried a new place in New Hampshire, Petey’s Summertime Seafood and Bar.

It was definitely worth the trip!

So maybe I expanded on the fried clams…Dad loved ice cream sundaes, too, and I am my father’s daughter. 🙂

And he loved martinis, dry, with two olives…but that’s a different story.

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**Disclaimer: This is my memory of this experience. Other’s remembrances may differ.**

BOOK REVIEW: The Rules of Magic by Alice Hoffman

by Karen, posted in author, Being BRAVE, book reviews, books, family

I loved The Rules of Magic!

I was a little cautious to be reading Alice Hoffman, because I sort of remembered finding one of her prior books being, um, kind of dark. Something above about doves, I think. I’m not sure.

I must have blocked it out.

This book, however, is a jewel. It’s a tale of two sisters and a brother, Jet, Franny, and Vincent. As they grow up, they become aware that they have magic in their bloodline, in their blood, but they also have a curse. Light and dark. This is the story of how they grow up and live their lives in the spotlight of, and in the shadow of, both.

I won’t kid you–there are some heartbreaking events in this book, but don’t we all have those in our lives?

I very much felt like I was right there in the story with them, that they were my friends. Friends that I loved and laughed and cried with.

Ultimately, the author is showing us that every story has a beginning and an ending, and that some stories have to end so that others can begin. Indeed, that every ending sparks a new beginning.

Of course there is sadness in a death, especially if it’s in an accident, if it’s unexpected, but it can give rise to a new, beautiful story.

I recommend this book. Go get The Rules of Magic by Alice Hoffman.

Blue Moon

by Karen, posted in family, good grief, local fun, the beach

My husband and I got up early and raced outside to try to see the Blue Moon Lunar Eclipse at the ‘optimal time’ here in Maine (6:45 am)–since it only occurs once every hundred years or so, we didn’t want to miss it.

And it was up there…behind the trees.

So we jumped in the car and headed to the ocean (because, let’s face it, everything is always best viewed from the perspective of the ocean) and you know, with a big, honkin’ cup of coffee.

My iPhone camera left something to be desired, but the moon did not.

It was amazing.

Afterward, the song 100 Years was playing over and over in my mind. This is a song that I associate with my paternal grandmother, Mary.  And then, just like that, I suddenly realized that she was with me.

Because of course, our loved ones who have crossed over are always with us.

Sometimes we just feel their presence more strongly than others.

BOOK REVIEW: ANGEL OF EVENTIDE by Elle Powers

by Karen, posted in Angels, author, book reviews, books, Brave books, family, relationships

I was pulled right in to the conversation between the angel and the woman at the outset of the book. But, is it an angel? Who is this woman?  I have many questions and so I press on, intensely interested in how the answers would they reveal themselves.

This is not only a story of compassion; it’s an epic love story.

It’s not a typical love story, however. I don’t want to give too much away, so I will tread carefully here.

It is the love story of Maren and Sea (pronounced “Shay” for Seamus). Maren is different from other girls. She doesn’t get sick. The ‘magic brownies’ her peers are eating don’t have any effect on her.

Maren is also a girl whose reckless behavior has placed her at the brink of death many times in her young life. At the age of ten, she is assigned an angel who literally rescues her from death and then proceeds to watch over her. What is unusual is this: Maren can see him. Maren has always been able to see the ‘folks’, as she refers to them. She has always has this special ability, to be able to see behind “The Mystic Curtain”, as her mother refers to it.

This book is so much more than a “romance between a fallen angel and a lost girl” (p 169). It is also the story of parents’ love for their child. Of God’s love for us. It’s a brilliant exploration of what it means to be mortal and immortal, angel and human, and how we all fit together into the larger story of life. When life feels like a punishment, perhaps it’s because we can’t see the whole story.

Near the end of the book is a reference to a song that only Maren was hearing (P 282-283) .

“Maren stirred to its dreamy rhythm, understanding that this was the song of the world–the composition of creation.”

This sentence immediately brought a song to mind. To me, it felt like a perfect description of this song sung by Andrea Bocelli, Canto Della Terra (Mighty Sun).

There are several quotes that I loved at the outset of each chapter, including one from The Untethered Soul by Michael A. Singer, one of my favorite books ever (p 225), so it was hard to  narrow it down to one favorite, but I managed.

My favorite quote from the book (P 214):

“The truth was that they were living out this story together; every heart in every age was essential and connected…and so their each and every choice mattered to the whole.”

Beautiful. Thank you, Elle Powers! Get this wonderful book, Angel of Eventide.

I leave you with this invitation: Treat yourself and listen to this song undistracted.

BOOK REVIEW: Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng

by Karen, posted in Being BRAVE, book reviews, books, Brave books, family, relationships

I got Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng on audio from the library. It was actually picked out by my daughter, because I ‘needed’ an audio book and I wasn’t seeing anything that grabbed me.I am mentioning it because, coincidentally, one of the main characters in the book is named Izzy, the same as my daughter. Also, another coincidence is that there is a character in the book named Bebe, which is the name of the main character in my fiction (thus far).  🙂

This book is about relationships between and among mothers and daughters. A privileged family of six meets, assimilates, and then clashes with a family of two that is decidedly not.  There are complicated pieces of the puzzle that mostly come together at the end, but there are a couple of loose ends, one of which I wanted answered.

Final verdict: Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng is worth reading. Let me know what you think if you do.

BOOK REVIEW: Unipreneur by Laura Stewart Shortridge

by Karen, posted in author, book reviews, books, Brave books, family

This is my friend Laura’s new book:

Unipreneur: How to Live Your Passion in a House Full of Dream-Killers

I loved reading this book!

There were so many concepts that were introduced that resonated with me that I felt like I was having coffee and discussing my own life with my BFF.

I loved also all the quotes she chose to begin the chapters.

Like Laura, I struggle with my “monkey mind”. Here’s my trick for dealing with it: I have learned to feed it a banana to get it to settle down so that I can think. You’re welcome.

I had a similar experience to the author’s with regard to biking with her husband. My husband was an athlete all his life and I was, well, I was not. Biking was something that he thought we could maybe do together and I manned up to be his partner. He got the short end of the deal though, when we were biking miles from home and I lost my balance and steered my front tire through—yes, through—his. I think we walked back to the cars with him carrying both bikes, and probably me, too, on his shoulders. Not pretty.

One of my hero is quoted in the book, Eleanor Roosevelet. “All the water in the world can’t drown you unless it gets inside of you.” BOOM.

Buy this great book!

Unipreneur: How to Live Your Passion in a House Full of Dream-Killers by Laura S. Shortridge

You’ll love it!

Want to watch and listen to me talk about Laura’s book? See below!

A wrinkle in time

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, Adult children, family

I was with my little son last night, a toddler in his stroller.

I packed him up and we headed out to McDonald’s for a treat.

I went up to the register, placed and received our order, and then pushed the stroller up to a table. I left him strapped in and turned my seat to face him. I opened up the bag with our food in it and extracted a french fry.

He reached for it and started munching.  I only gave him one at a time, because mothers of toddlers know this truth:

A typical toddler will take fistfuls of whatever food he loves and shove it into his mouth over and over without bothering pausing for breath.

Now, this was just a little treat for us in a typical day when I was a young mother, taking my little one out for lunch between errands. The only thing is that I am no longer a young mother. I am a midlife mother.

And my son is no longer a toddler. He is a twenty-six year old man.

The thing is, in the dream last night, I was that young mother again, and he was that toddler.

It felt every bit as real to me as if it did just happen yesterday, and not twenty-three years ago.

I believe that we are all every age we have ever been at any given time.

The experience of this dream is one of the reasons that I believe it.

What a wonderful gift this was to me, this dream.

 

The BRAVE Interview #14 September 2017: Sylvia Wesley

by Karen, posted in Adult children, Being BRAVE, Catching women being brave, family, Interviews, relationships, The BRAVE Interviews, Travel, Turning 50

Here is this month’s BRAVE Interview with Sylvia Wesley! Enjoy!

  1. WHO are you? I’m a 61-year-old white woman—wife, mother, nurse, and pseudo-bon vivant!
  2. WHAT is your One Brave Thing? Sometimes I feel like just living every day is a Brave Thing and it is difficult to choose a single event!  As a nurse, it seems like so many of my ‘brave things’ encompass caring for people—my dad and my brother, who both died of cancer; my mom with multiple surgeries; friends with HIV/AIDS.  As a mom I gave birth to twins who were 10 weeks premature and their first 6 months of life was pretty hectic, to put it mildly.  As a wife, still being married after 38 years could be considered brave—but probably the bravest aspect there is that I married a black man in 1979, only 12 years after the Supreme Court ruled interracial marriage was not illegal, and our early years involved some struggles in a very white New England. So, after all that, I decided to choose a joyous adventure as my One Brave Thing—I went to Burning Man!
  3. WHEN did you do it? 8/28-9/1, 2006
  4. WHERE did it occur? Black Rock Desert, NV
  5. HOW did you make it happen? Mostly my daughter made the initial experience happen.  She had been going to Burning Man for a few years and always marveled at how awesome it was and she was sure I would love it.  So for my 50th birthday, I was given a ticket to TTITD (aka ‘that thing in the desert’).  Which meant I would be sharing camping space with 38,000+ other adventuring nomads for a week in rather hostile environmental conditions, and only knowing one other person.  A little scary having to be self-reliant in an unknown situation, camping with my daughter’s friends who only had her assurances that I was ‘fun, non-judgmental, fully capable of taking care of myself, and would not act like everybody’s mother.’  So I packed my bags and flew to LA.  We readied all our camping equipment, some party outfits, food and water for a week, and did a 12 hour ride/drive-share to the event with a heretofore unknown person.  After 12+ hours, in a very small mini-van, we were all fast friends.  Getting to and from is just as much of an adventure as being there!
  6. WHY did you do it? For the adventure!  It was one of the best experiences of my life—the bigger-than-life art, the music, the people, the sense of oneness—all magnificent.  I came away with a whole new sense of self.  And as my daughter predicted, I would want to go every year after that, and did so for the next 7 years.  ‘Life’ has since interrupted my annual trek, and I have not been for the past 3 years, but look forward to resuming visits to my personal Mecca in the near future.

Thank you for sharing your story with us, Sylvia!

If anybody wants to learn more about the culture that is Burning Man, go to https://burningman.org/

Read the other BRAVE interviews here: https://kwrites.com/?s=The+BRAVE+Interview

If you would like to be interviewed for this series about something brave you have done in your life, email me at kmcwrites@gmail.com!

What goes around

by Karen, posted in Adult children, family, teens

When I graduated from high school, one of the things that I was given was a Lane cedar mini-keepsake box. I know this because, unlike other things I might have been given that day, I still have my Lane cedar mini-keepsake box. One of the reasons that I was so excited to receive it was because my mother had one. It had been on her bureau for as long as I could remember, and she kept who-knew-what in it. I didn’t know, because she kept it locked.

Darn!

Anyway, I keep important keepsakes in mine, like childhood memorabilia (my pet rock!), photos, a scrap of paper with my grandmother’s writing on it. That’s mine on the left. My daughter’s is on the right.

Fast forward to 2017, and my own daughter has graduated from high school. Lane stopped this practice of bestowing the boxes in the 1980’s, I believe, but I thought, wouldn’t it be cool if I got her one? I have seen a few here and there over the years, but they were in abysmal shape. Two days ago, I spotted one at a Flea Market on my way to Boothbay. When they saw my interest, the very nice couple behind the table started to tell me about the history of it. Hey, these were people who loved the story as much as the object! My kind of people!

Alas, the key was missing. In the past, this was a deal breaker for me. This time though, I decided to trust my gut and buy it anyway.

We presented it to my daughter today. My husband told her he would get a key for hers, making it truly a gift from both of her parents that I hope she will tell her own daughter about someday, as she presents her with one of her own.