Bloom Where You’re Planted

Author Claire Cook considers herself a late-bloomer having published her first novel in her mid-forties. I knew of Claire’s work because I read the second book she wrote, Must Love Dogs and then picked up a copy of every book that followed.
Years later I met Claire online on the Goodread.com website. Our conversation started after [...]

A Page From Alexa’s Journal

February 18th, 2006 Alexa’s father died. To mark the one year anniversary last year I posted the tribute that she  wrote for for his funeral. Since then Alexa has written more about surviving loss and living with chronic illness.
Since today marks the second year I have provided a link to the tribute she wrote and read at [...]

Like There’s No Tomorrow

With the upcoming holiday seasaon I’ve decided to reprint this post from December 2007: 

Last Christmas my daughter traveled an hour and a half to spend Christmas with her father and his family. Shortly after she arrived at her grandmother’s house her father left to attend a Christmas party. My daughter was angry, she had arranged to spend time [...]

Bruised and Out of Step

My weekend was a lot of hard work which left me tired and achy all the way through Tuesday, worse yet I had moved several large pieces of furniture and in due course managed to smash my fingers,  bump my head and bruise my thigh. Later I made supper and burned my hand:(
Monday sucked too [...]

Light as Claire

I recently joined an online community for readers and writers called Good Reads, if you like books, it quickly becomes an addicting past time.  On Good Reads you can list books you’ve read, rate them and if you’re so inclined, you can write a review. This new forum has lead to a stack of books next [...]

I Forgot that Sunflower’s Die

The sunflowers were in bloom today, the ones my daughter and I planted as a memorial to her dad. One flower bloomed weeks before the others, then it slumped over and hung its head. My heart hurt. As I walked to the house I wondered how I would face the remaining 50. I wondered if [...]

A Tribute – December 28, 1961 – February 18, 2007

It was a year ago today that I recieved a phone call saying my daughters father had died, he was 45.  Nothing in my life could have prepared me to break that news to our then 16 year old daughter.
My daughter wrote the following tribute which she read last year at his funeral:
 Dear Dad,
I can’t believe [...]

Christmas Memories

Last Christmas my daughter traveled and hour and a half to spend Christmas with her father and his family. Shortly after she arrived at her grandmother’s house her father and his wife left to attend a Christmas party and my daughter was angry. She arranged to spend time with him but he didn’t arrange to [...]