This week's wonderful Indie Chick is Melissa Smith! Sadly this is the final story in the Indie Chick Anthology. Hopefully you've enjoyed our inspirational stories. We've had many emails stating how our stories have given some readers the strength to change their lives for the better.
Writing Out the Grief
Melissa A. Smith
A
common question people ask a writer is what made them decide to sit
down and start writing in the first place. For me, it was grief.
While
in high school, I wrote. I had taken journalism and the teacher loved
my writings. Two pieces of my work had been published in two different
school publications. I was also asked to join the staff for the school
paper, but declined. I just didn’t like writing the things wanted for a
paper. I liked creating stories to take you places. Inventing new worlds
and people to live in them. I stopped writing after getting out of
school and didn’t start again for several long years.
December
2008 had started like any other December before it. I was out shopping
for those perfect gifts for each member of my family, and loving every
minute of it. By my side was my shopping partner. My mom. My best
friend. This year was a little different, as we made our rounds trying
to get most of her shopping done earlier than her normal pace of slow
(she was known to be out shopping as late as Christmas Eve), because she
was set to have her final knee replacement surgery on the 19th. That
day was also the last day of work I had before school let out for
Christmas Break.
We had almost done everything
she’d wanted to have done, done. But there were still a few things to
gather, like stocking stuffers and things of that nature. She went in
for her surgery and everything went great! The last time she’d been in
the hospital, for the first knee 6 months prior, she’d contracted
hospital-acquired pneumonia. Her doctor, wanting her to be healthy for
the rigorous knee therapy that follows two days after surgery, released
her the following day. The 20th.
Wanting to
forgo giving you all the details, I received a phone call early on the
21st. A phone call no one wants to get. My father, who’d awoken to find
his partner for the past 34 years gone, couldn’t make that call. The
responding police officer had to do it for him. Pneumonia had taken her
from us.
So started my decent into grief.
We
were supposed to do some shopping before I took her to physical therapy
that day. We were supposed to do a lot of things during my break,
because she too had it off for recovery.
Instead, I had to help my dad organize a funeral.
During the year and a half that followed, I read over 230 books. All while working full time and tending to a family.
It
was the start of summer vacation in 2010 when I’d run out of books to
read. I dove into spending time with my boys and vegging at the pool
daily. I thought it had been long enough, and maybe the grief wouldn’t
be so sharp. I was wrong. Without having someplace for my mind to
wander, to live in, I was a mess of tears.
It
was then I’d woke up in the middle of the night, leaving a dream that
made my brain buzz. I tried to shake it off, leave it where I found it.
In my dreams. But it wanted to be let out. So I sat down in secret and
started writing.
At first when my family noticed my switch
from books to the computer and all my constant typing, they asked what I
was doing. I lied. I told them I was writing to my sister who lives in
Texas. At first they bought it, but as the typing went on, they were
puzzled as to why I didn’t just call her and talk to her. Again, I lied.
But this time I said she’d asked me to write down some things about our
mom.
While they still were puzzled by all the clicking going on at the keyboard, they left me alone.
Three
months later, I’d written and finished my first novel. Cloud Nine.
During that time I also started on another story which I finished and
released four months later.
While writing started out as
therapy for a grieving soul, it is now something I must do to keep all
the exciting characters quiet. I love it! I only wish it could have
developed without such dark beginnings, but nonetheless, my mother would
be proud.
This is one story from Indie Chicks: 25 Women 25 Personal Stories available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble
for the wonderfully low price of Free! To read all of the stories, grab your copy today!
Also included are sneak peeks into 25 great novels!
My young adult paranormal romance, Cloud Nine is one of the novels featured.
