Hannie Rising

                             

It’s official. My latest endeavor, HANNIE RISING, (cover image to follow) is finally finished and scheduled for release in June 2014. The novel is set in Tralee, County Kerry, Ireland. I’ll be posting short excerpts on my blog. The plot goes like this:

A practical, occasionally irreverent, Saint Peter gives Mickey Enright another chance at mortality to tie up loose ends with Johannah, (Hannie), his wife of three decades and their grown but needy children, Kate and Liam. The only glitch is that he is unrecognizable and must not reveal his identity.

Hannie, like most women of her generation, has allowed herself to be consumed by her role as wife and mother. After the worst of her grief has subsided, she is about to embark on the journey of fulfillment she's postponed for thirty years...until her daughter's marriage collapses, her son comes home to finish his education and her mother, on the edge of Alzheimer's, needs a place to live along with her very large and poorly trained dog....

Mom in Retrospect

My mother died seven years ago in September, one month before Daylight Savings time ended. I always thought it was an appropriate time for her to leave us, if there ever was an appropriate time. She was a morning person who loved the light. When the last rays of sun vanished from the sky she became someone completely different, tired, moody, almost lethargic. By 8:30 she was asleep, completely, irrevocably, until the first blush of dawn woke her, completely energized, to face the day.

For a long time I didn’t miss her. The last years, when her Alzheimer’s controlled everything, were difficult ones. She was a strong woman, capable and intelligent, the child of immigrants who earned a masters degree when most of her generation didn’t finish high school. It was that intelligence that made us hesitate and hope that our suspicions were groundless. She stayed in her home long past the time when she should have had care, fiercely asserting her right to do as she pleased, until that was no longer possible. Those memories, raw and painful, are hard for me to put aside.

Although my mother and I weren’t close, we made our peace in the end, mostly because she was my mother and we had our moments. When I was little, she sang in the mornings. I liked that, and she couldn’t keep a straight face when scolding me, breaking out in laughter before the admonition was complete. I liked that, too. There were no curfews or bedtimes in my family, no serious rules or chores. Everyone just did what needed to be done. I didn’t like that. I was part of the first TV generation. I wanted a mother like Mrs. Cleaver or Donna Reed, mothers who wanted to know where their children were during the day, mothers who inspected teeth and checked over homework.

In retrospect, I realize she cared deeply, demanding excellence in her own way with high expectations, strong opinions and an unwavering belief that fairness should prevail.

She wasn’t the easiest of mothers but she cared about people, she loved animals, she worked hard, we could count on her in a pinch and, as my daughter recently pointed out, she knew what was appropriate no matter what the circumstance and always behaved accordingly. Not too bad a legacy for a mother, or for anyone. Happy Mother’s Day to all.                                                                                                                     

Having It All - Not So Much

Next year, after more than three decades, I will be retired from teaching school. It’s an understatement to say I’m looking forward to it. I won’t substitute, tutor or volunteer in the classroom. I will be done. I want to live differently. I want to play with my grandson and go out to breakfast with my husband. I want to travel to exotic locations during a season that isn’t summer. I want to attend concerts on school nights and visit museums on school days. I want to be a full-time writer without a day job.

I’ve known women whose lives were more chaotic than mine, but I still have no idea how I managed the job, the children, the husband, the house, a book or two a year and a weekly newspaper column. Someone once told me that people can only handle three major roles in life with any degree of quality. Something has to give. I certainly hope it wasn't the children-probably not-they turned out remarkably well, as did the day job and the newspaper column. Clearly the husband was a casualty. We divorced after 26 years, but the eventual peace was worth the severing of the marriage. 


It was probably the books that suffered, not so much the quality although some were definitely better than others, but the career end of it, the marketing, the website, the newsletters, the advertising, the connection with the writing community that comes with participation. I didn’t do that. It was the networking that ended up on the back burner.  

People ask why I didn’t scale down, give up the day job, put all my efforts into writing. Lack of confidence, I suppose, as well as the necessity of a monthly paycheck. The mortgage needed paying, kids needed braces, lessons, clothes, medical, etc. My income was never optional and teaching school was a lovely way to spend my days and earn that

income.
                                                             
But now it’s time. I turned 60 in March. I look forward to the rest of my life, to writing in the daylight, to slowing my pace, to no longer timing my bathroom breaks to a recess schedule. I no longer want or need to “have it all.”

Babies Then, Babies Now

Jennifer told me the baby moved today. I’m pathetically grateful, overreacting to an event that seems normal, even uneventful, to most people. But for us, given my daughter’s precarious health, every movement, every heartbeat, every new millimeter of growth is nothing short of a miracle.

I was 21 years old when Jennifer was born, young for motherhood. I remember announcing the news to my own mother. She was only 42 and, in retrospect, unprepared. Her words, “So soon? Haven’t you heard of birth control?” are forever stamped into my memory bank. To be fair, she turned out to be a devoted grandmother. 

Both my pregnancies were uneventful, the deliveries much easier and faster than expected. There were no ultrasounds or genetic tests in 1973. No one even cautioned me about alcohol. My children were delivered by a family doctor, not a gynecologist and the sex of each was a surprise, discovered after delivery.

Jennifer is 38, not 21. It is 2013, not 1973, and I am, clearly, not my 42-year old mother. Unexpected, embarrassing tears threatened when I heard my grandson’s heartbeat for the first time. I couldn’t speak when the gynecologist asked if I’d ever imagined this day.

The unbelievably long first trimester is over, yet I still agonize before each prenatal visit, hold my breath and pray that all is well when the phone rings late at night and I see Jennifer’s number on my caller ID. Just in case, I make ridiculous bargains with God; please keep Jennifer and her baby healthy and I’ll never ask for anything again, is one of the more common ones.

Four months have passed. Five more to go. Thankfully, the sensitive first trimester is over and I’m beginning to relax…if only just a little.

What a lovely Christmas present. Check out my books, and others, published by Author & Co.

 http://www.facebook.com/pages/Author-Company-LLC/228352177201597

eBooks now available

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