As of today with just over two days to go I am leading by fifty-one votes. Though I don't want to rest on my laurels, and I know how easy it is to surge ahead like I did with your support, I'm feeling very good about my chances now.
I'd also like to share My Gutsy Story here. I hope piece about what I did to survive my son's death will help others going through their own tragedies. Some of the material here is also in my memoir, Leaving the Hall Light On.
Sonia Marsh - Founder of The Gutsy Story contest
When my older son Paul died by suicide
in 1999 after a seven-year battle with bipolar disorder, I knew I had to find
ways to keep myself busy and productive or else I would wallow away in my
grief. At the time of his death I was writing grant proposals for a homeless
shelter, but I found too many reminders working from my home office. The
solution, I thought, was to work outside my home.
After two false starts at part-time jobs
outside – writing grant proposals for our local free clinic and managing
capital campaigns as a fundraising consultant – I decided the way for me to
live with the death of my older son was to get rehired by the aerospace company
I retired from in the mid-1990s where I had worked off and on since the mid 1960s.
When a job opening came up in January 2003, I jumped at it and was hired.
My job was to help my company produce
proposals, a huge document or set of documents, meant to persuade the
government to hire us to do their needed work. The job was challenging, meaningful,
and very stressful – all necessary to keeping my mind so occupied with other
things I would have no time to grieve. Each proposal project had a defined
beginning, middle, and end so it gave me the opportunity to work with
ever-changing proposal teams. I thrived on that socialization, the respect
others had for my work, and the challenges of training engineers how to write
in English.
Meeting stringent deadlines made me
stronger, and keeping my mind on the job stopped me from dwelling on my loss.
Plus, I gained skills in setting goals, organizing work and the people I worked
with, and managing to a deadline – all skills necessary to my writing career
now.
But I kept feeling the draw of creative
writing. I had studied journalism in high school and college, I had taken many
writing classes and workshops, and by 2009, I was already shopping a memoir I
had written (in my “spare” time) about the death of our son and how our family
survived. So I started to think about retiring from my day job again. Except I
kept hesitating. I was afraid to take that step. I was afraid I would fall
apart without my full-time job crutch.
Even though I asked myself: why was I
doing my company’s work – of taking men and women back to the moon? Why should
I do this work instead of working on my own writing projects? Why was I
sabotaging my creativity and healing? I rationalized that I needed the
structure, the socialization, and the money. I rationalized that I wouldn’t do
well working from home again – alone. But it was none of those. I just plain
refused to find out if I could live and survive on my own and as the full-time
writer I so longed to be.
Well, I finally did retire, but it took
me until April 2010, to do it. When I look back at all those years of
indecision, I realize I just couldn’t make the final decision until I was good
and ready. Until I felt comfortable enough with myself. Until I stopped
carrying around the grief and sorrow.
And the timing was perfect.
Two months after I retired I got a
publishing contract for my memoir Leaving the Hall Light On: A Mother’s
Memoir of Living with Her Son’s Bipolar Disorder and Surviving His Suicide
that I had been pitching for over two years. Almost immediately I was knee-deep
in revising my book and getting it ready for publication and getting more and
more involved with the social networking necessary to publicize my book. Best
of all, after my book was published, I was able to move on to the career I’ve
wanted to have since I was a teenager: as a journalist and creative writer.
I like to think that Paul’s death gave
me the gift of this new career and a new mission in life. I created a book with
the goal of helping others who have experienced a loss like mine; I am working
as a web journalist for several online sites that deal with survival, healthy
living, and being a vibrant over 60-year old; I’m busy writing a novel, and I
discovered my most important work of all: helping to erase the stigma of mental
illness and prevent suicide with the hope of saving lives. If my writing helps
attain that mission, it will all be worth it.
2 comments:
What follows is my review of Madeline’s book…. Madeline is a world class human being and I am blessed to call her one of my dearest friends. As far as I am concerned the word gutsy only touches on how magnificent Madeline truly is….. ~Keith Alan Hamilton~
review is from: Leaving the Hall Light On (Hardcover)
This memoir with poems by Madeline Sharples, I hope will have a positive effect on the reader’s intellect and values beyond the awareness of a mother’s tremendous courage as a human being to cope with and talk about the loss of her son. Way beyond her gifted abilities to write so openly and poetically about her son’s life experience, his all-out struggle with a condition not fully understood and still felt as not normal by others. Way, way beyond the heart wrenching trauma underwent by a family who had a beloved member commit the ill thought of and unspeakable act, the taking of his own life. Madeline’s forthright and insightful words, whether intentional or not, will present an introspective opportunity to the reader. Where the reader is unexpectedly provided the chance to self-reflect and wrestle with their own preconceived biases and inhibitions on this matter. Those socially embedded judgments, which sadly cause a state of dis-ease, a lack of discernment concerning two separate but often associated components within the trials and tribulations of day-to-day living. Publically chosen and accepted labels, shadowed by the stigma of disease, mental illness and defect, called bipolar disorder and suicide.
In Leaving the Hall Light On, Madeline Sharples has graciously given forth the experience of her son’s journey through life as a precious gift. Her son’s life and how he lived it, holds out tremendous value to those who care to listen. Beneath the pain and stigma, is a cherished life, no matter if perceived as being tragically cut short, in the end was well worth every moment it was humanly lived. A life of a son, portrayed honestly without embarrassment or regret by the loving words of his mother. The writing of this memoir with poems by Madeline Sharples may have been at times hard for her to say or bear; and yet, her heartfelt words keep alive the spirit of purpose and positive effect her son’s life experience will have on others, even after he choose to walk into the release of death. Her son’s life and death offers us all the opportunity to learn and then personally grow as a human being ourselves.
Thank you Madeline Sharples for helping to let the memory, the spirit and the value of Paul’s life, get the chance to breathe fully within the beat of time.
http://www.amazon.com/review/R1VXZ12KMMCMZ5/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm?ie=UTF8&ASIN=0984631720&nodeID=&tag=&linkCode=
Thank you, thank you, thank you, Keith, for being in my life and for being in my heart. Your words mean so much to me as does your friendship. You are a dear and wonderful friend. Lots of hugs, xoxoxo.
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