Life at Daniel's Place --- The first part of the journey to getting a book out there

The road to publication is a long one. If you have a literary agent that lands your manuscript with a publisher, most likely you have waited a number of months for this deal to transpire. By the time your book is available for sale, you’ve experienced the process of deep editing, cover design, and marketing.

My first novel, Rain Song, was accepted by a publisher (Bethany House) two months after my literary agent sent my manuscript to them. Oh, happy day, when I got the phone call! I was going to finally, finally, have a book published! Then I had to wait 20 months (that’s not a typo) before my debut novel was published. The waiting was long. During that wait-time, I started this blog.

This time, with my memoir, Life at Daniel's Place, I decided to pass the whole agent/publisher process and publish on my own. Here’s where I have to be honest, this manuscript of mine has never been sent to an agent or a publisher. I have, after much prayer and thought, decided to independently get my book out to the masses. In the past, I’ve published three memorial cookbooks on my own, so I know a little about the work involved. For the stuff I don’t know as much about as I need to, I turn to the Internet and the gurus who can help.

I hired an editor. I think every good book needs an editor . . . or two. A book is only as good as its editor, someone to get the commas in the right place and check for inconsistencies. Publishing houses either have their own in-house editors or hire freelancers. There are masses of developmental, copy, and line editors out there, as well as proofreaders, ready to be hired. And that's a good thing because they are needed. It’s hard to catch every mistake when it’s your own work. Another pair of eyes does wonders.

I sort of worked backwards with this book. But I have often not followed the "rules". I created the title, then the cover on Canva, and then wrote the back cover blurb. I set a date for publication, hoping that would motivate me to write the content. Actually, I have so many files pertaining to a story about my son Daniel and our family, that it was really a matter of selecting which scenes to include. The dream for this memoir has been brewing for years.

So, this is my quick update about my newest book to arrive this summer. I plan to write more about this journey as time goes on. Thanks for reading!

Broken Faith

The first Christmas without my child was one I wanted to avoid. Yet bereavement is not a journey we get to bypass; bereavement is a journey made to go through, and discover how to live in spite of sorrow.

December 1997

At the strip mall I entered a chain Christian bookstore I’d been to many times before. A Christmas tree with red bows and silver and gold ornaments greeted me. I was aware of the piped-in music because it was one of my favorite carols that played, “O Little Town of Bethlehem”. Whoever was singing had a rich, soulful voice, which transported me back to last Christmas.

Last Christmas we had our own decorated tree, expecting to spend Christmas at home with my brother and his girlfriend who had come to visit. But days before the 25th Daniel ended up in the hospital due to some unknown cause. He’d spiked a fever, was delirious, but although numerous tests were done, nothing grew in the Petri dish. Next Christmas will be different, I had thought, as I sat by his bedside reading books to him. Next Christmas he’ll be done with his protocol and we’ll be able to celebrate at home like a normal family.

We were now living next Christmas.

As the music in the bookstore continued, I walked down the aisles. One aisle was stocked with motivational books, books with titles that were all about how to increase your faith and trust Jesus in all things. Book after book. Believe, grow, love, trust!

I made my way toward the door, ready to leave. I'd been crazy to think that I could shop during this season. With a hand on the door, I paused. To my right I saw a table that had a sign on it: Discount.

Discount tables and I have always gotten along. I’ve never met a discount I didn’t like. On the table among plaques, and tree ornaments, a stocking hanger with the manger scene piqued my interest. There in the middle of the decoration was baby Jesus in the cradle with Mary and a lamb to the left of him. Joseph crouched by Mary and the three wisemen with their gifts were together. A donkey relaxed by the foot of the cradle. I picked the item up, turning it over in my hand. I noted the weight of it. It was a heavy piece.

As with anything that’s placed on sale, I want to know why. Peering closely, I saw the tiny star at the top of the hanger had a faint diagonal line underneath that didn't look like it belonged. Two of the points of the star were chipped. The donkey was missing an ear. The item had to have been dropped or hit; the star must have broken away from the rest of those below it. Someone had used glue to seal it back to the roof of the stable. I suppose the donkey's right ear was never found. I ran my fingers over all the edges and figures, over the defects. I had never had a stocking hanger before, but that was not why this decoration continued to stay in my hands. This object connected to me.

It belonged to me.

I purchased the discounted broken item. It was right within my frugal budget; it had been marked down from twenty-five dollars to just seven-ninety-nine. Now it really was mine.

On the way home, I drove past homes with festive lights strung from eaves. Plastic blow-up snowmen and big, happy Santas waved from neighbors’ lawns. Wreaths graced front doors. Inside the windows I saw decorated pine and spruce trees, their twinkling lights bright and warm.

When I got home, I hung my new purchase on the mantle in the family room. I told my husband that the item was the beginning of a collection of Christmas decorations, decorations for the broken.

Next year, maybe it would be easier to breathe during the holiday season. Next year maybe the air would not be thickened with brokenness. But maybe not. There were no promises for an easy life; but there was the promise of Emmanuel always with us.



O little town of Bethlehem

How still we see thee lie

Above thy deep and dreamless sleep

The silent stars go by

Yet in thy dark streets shineth

The everlasting Light

The hopes and fears of all the years

Are met in thee tonight.

Always Keep Good Tissues Around

The other day I was optimist as I worked on a different slant to my memoir, deciding instead of making it so Daniel-and-me-centered, I could make it more God-centered. I even thought that after twenty-three years, I could make the portion about intense grieving less fierce, because, after all, twenty-three years since Daniel's death has gone by. I wasn't that once-upon-a-time young mother who couldn't help but get nostalgic and cry over a grilled cheese sandwich or a little yellow raincoat with a frog on the pocket. I was not that mama who kept asking God "WHY?" I had adjusted.

And then today came along. This afternoon I spent time online looking for a mountain getaway for Carl, the boxer-dog Levi, and me. Church friends seemed to all be taking trips to the mountains and then when a neighbor walked by (keeping over 6-feet apart) telling us her plans for a family trip away, I thought it was time to convince Carl of my intentions. I'd been tinkering with the idea that Carl and I could head up to the North Carolina mountains and have a break from our home business. I could write the great American memoir and Carl could play with his new drone. Levi could gnaw on a bone.

Most of the listings on VRBO had their COVID-19 deep cleaning statements. There were paragraphs about how they adhered to the CDC guidelines on cleaning, using an EPA-approved disinfectant between customers. That sounded super safe to me.

Carl's never been to Asheville, and while the Biltmore isn't open, I figured that we could venture around that artsy city. I dived into looking at rental cabins, at their porches that overlooked mountain views, the nearby streams, even photos of black bears. And that was when the nice little planning of a getaway went into full flash-back. I was surprised that it took no effort at all. It was October 1996: I was in a rustic bungalow in the Banner Elk region with three of my kids and their father. Four-year-old bald-headed Daniel, in a blue T-shirt that covered the catheter in his back, was with Rachel by a stream. They were laughing together, enjoying the water running over their toes. With that scene in my mind, I was no longer excited about a mountain adventure; sadness swept over me.

The churning in my stomach went up towards my heart. I swallowed the lump that had formed in my throat. I didn't have to think about if I were in a movie what music would be playing. As tears hit my eyes, the Jazz playlist I had on played an instrumental version of Eric Clapton's Tears in Heaven. As if it knew what I was going through and what that song does to me. I closed all the browser windows. Goodbye to the cute cabins with crisp mountain ranges surrounding them. So long to imaging myself on a porch swing with a morning cup of Earl Grey.

I thought I could be normal. I thought I could plan like my friends and neighbor do. I called myself a fool for thinking that I could slip into suddenly being unbereaved, especially at this time of year. Daniel's birthday is next month. I always say you could be on a deserted island without a tangible calendar and yet feel that pang in your heart and throat as your child's birth date approached. There's no hiding from it. We mothers know these things.

So for those who wonder how we mamas go from happy to sad in the click of a mouse, this is one way it can happen. We are bee-bopping along, content, going to plan something or do something like normal folk do. And then, that trigger --- a song, a word, a memory --- reminds us that ever since our child died, we lost the ability to be considered normal. We function at a different level and the truth is that it often brings tears, loneliness, and isolation. We might be in a room filled with merry people and we might even have a smile on our face, and then, as quick as a lightning bug flutters across a summer lawn, we are no longer one of the merry.

Eventually Tears In Heaven reached its end. A happier song filled the room. But my heart and mind had not caught up to a mellow-Sunday-afternoon feeling again.

What saved me is knowing that I could write the scenario I had just experienced and post it here on my blog. I could share what had happened to me via social media and others would read and go, "Ah, yeah. I know." And that would suffice. Knowing that I am not alone and that many mothers can relate to this breach of normalcy somehow makes me feel less lonely.

I will get back to searching for a mountain place to rent. But first let me understand who I am and never be surprised at how even after twenty-three years I can still be caught off guard by tears. Parental bereavement with all its hidden characteristics never goes away. We just learn how to adapt to living with it.

Perhaps that's why my motto is: Always keep good tissues around.

Watermelon, Irises, Tomatoes, Geraniums, and a Spider: Does Time Heal Wounds?

In bereavement meetings parents have certain topics that continue to be discussed. One's about time and wounds. A mother who had lost her daughter to a car accident just weeks before my son died, said to the group, "They say that time heals all wounds." She was southern and I couldn't understand if she was saying "all wounds" or "old wounds".

I suppose the question that I wanted to ask was: Does time heal? At all? As the minutes, hours, and days tick away in agony, do all wounds get taken care of, soothed, do the scabs heal, do the ugly scars fade?

As a newly-grieving mom, I knew so little about the journey I had been forced to take, but I did know one thing, and that was that old scars do not fade away. I've had a scar since I was two, a paintbrush I was playing with in the bathtub attacked me and cut the skin near my left eye. My parents wrapped me in a towel, held me while I cried, felt awful, and later would wonder if they should have taken me to get stitches. The blood dried up, and healing started, but that scar is still visible all these years later.

So time doesn't heal old wounds. I suspect that after 54 years, that scar on the corner of my eye has done all the healing it is going to do.

No wonder I resonated with another bereaved mother, a veteran, who at fifteen years since her son took his own life, said to me over lunch one afternoon years ago, "I think I've done all the healing that I'm going to do."

She wasn't giving up on healing or digging a hole and hiding, she was being realistic. There comes a point in the bereaved parent's life when she or he knows that it is not going to get any better than this.

For me, I'm not going to be able to look at the things that remind me of Daniel and not feel that tenderness in my heart. Since his death, two fruits, two flowers, and one spider have kept me in the loop of significant memories. The watermelon, the geranium, the tomato, the iris, and the spider are some of the things that hold powerful remembrances for me. And depending on the time of year (Christmas, Daniel's birthdate in August or death date in February), if I encounter any of these, well, bring on the Puffs.

Society may think time washes it all away like an ocean wave. Build a sand castle at the beach and once the waves knock it down, there is no evidence that a sandcastle once stood in the spot. Many can't believe that after ten, fifteen, or twenty years a mother or father can still feel pain.

But it's not that our desire is to feel pain, it's that we want to remember and since our child is dead, of course, it's always going to make us sad.

When I see a purple iris blooming in my garden, I recall the time Daniel, at age three, couldn't say my name Alice well enough to be understood by strangers and they thought he was saying, "My mommy's name is Iris."

Daniel picked green tomatoes from our garden, even though I told him to wait till they ripened. He took a green tomato to the hospital once and put it on the window sill of his room. He had seen me place green tomatoes on the kitchen window sill at our home, with the hope that the sun would stream in and turn them red.

There are many watermelon stories, including the one where friends brought a watermelon to Daniel when he was in the hospital for chemo treatments on the Fourth of July. He ate a few slices, spit seeds (this was back when all watermelon had "spittable" black seeds), and then said, "I think I've had enough watermelon," and stored the leftovers in the bathtub.

One afternoon I heard Daniel chanting, "A spider, a spider for a pet, a spider for a pet," and when I found him, he was outside watching a tiny spider creep along the side of our house.

And then the geraniums. I would have forgotten about these flowers (and that apparently I was once able to keep flowers alive) if it weren't for the photo of Daniel seated in his blue plastic chair in front of a table with a cup of juice and a blue bowl of food. He chose to eat his lunch outside beside the potted red, pink, and white geraniums. He would have preferred to be naked if I didn't make him wear clothes. When I took that photo, I had no idea that the neck he exposed so nicely held a malignant tumor, one that would surface months later, and change his life and ours forever.

So does time heal old wounds, or even all of them?

No, and for me, that's a good thing.


[Daniel Paul Wisler, August 25, 1992---February 2, 1997]

The Long Corridor

"How can I remember his life without the impact of his death?"


This is not like hitting a large pothole on a dark road and being caught off guard. It cannot sneak up on you because every year the familiar dates do not change. When I get a new desk calendar in January, I mark his dates. My son Daniel was born August 25th. And he died February 2nd. Both of those days have a heart drawn around them.

What continues to surprise many bereaved parents is the long corridor that leads up to the anniversary day of a child. How do our bodies and minds know that the date is approaching? I often tell people that I could be on a deserted island without my calendar, but my mind would still know.

The anniversary date of a child's death wreaks havoc with all our senses as we remember. The date of his death is not like his birthday, where as painful as it is without him, we can celebrate that he was born. The anniversary date is the flipside, reminding us that it all ended. Anniversary dates mean saying good-bye. No more memories. Gone. Finished here on earth. It's over.

We try not to let it take its toll. After all, most of us do not seek to dwell on every detail that killed our child. We hear the world say, "Still? It's been ten years." Or twelve, or like me, fourteen. Even so we wonder why we get this knot in our stomach as flashbacks snap before us on our memory's picture screen.

"The days leading up to Ethan's death anniversary date of January 19th are like this long corridor I have to walk alone. I even sometimes forget the dates leading up to the 19th are going to be hard," my friend Brina wrote to me recently about her infant son.

How well she described it! We replay those events that lead up to our child's death. Even years later, we still think that if we could have changed one or two of those circumstances, we would continue to have our son or daughter. Could have, should have, would have. Those are the phrases we learn early on not to say. But we still say them. If only. Why didn't I?

The days leading up to that marked date on the calendar can be lonely, painful, agonizing, irreverant. Yet each year we have to walk through them, until, at last, the day passes, and we are on the other side of the long hallway. For now. Until next year.

The first years without a child are all gut-wrenching, and when the anniversary day looms, parents wonder if they can survive another year. As time goes on, the harshness softens to some extent. Yet I've heard parents say that certain years were harder than others. My friends Gene and Linda just experienced fifteen years since Steve, their only child's, death. Because Steve was fifteen when he died, this particular year marked fifteen years with him, and fifteen years without.

I think of Stephen King's The Green Mile and what walking along it signified to the inmates. They plodded along that long corridor until they reached a chair. By being strapped to that chair, they would be removed from this world.

We parents re-walk that mile every year. Yet it is not we who sit in the chair, it is those memories of our child who died. The call is given, the act is done, and breath stops. There was nothing we could have done to prevent that action. Nothing, no loophole, that we can find, to bring our precious child back to us.

And so we walk. Scenes from years ago grab us like horrific nightmares, only we know we will not wake up and find our child safely in bed. We are still bereaved and that is why, year after year, we must make that lonely walk.

As Christians, we believe in life after death. This brings much comfort. Yet, I must emphasize that walking the mile is still treacherous, at times scary, and sorrowful, despite the promise that our child is experiencing the magnitude of Heaven. For those who want to say, "Be glad he is in Heaven," I would like to add, "Yes, but I want him here. Just like your child is here with you, living each day as part of your family."

For the corridor is not about life after death or that we will again be reunited with our child, it is about the truth that death, plain and vast, occurred, and every year we are impacted by this horrendous truth we cannot escape. Some of us have more events along their corridor, especially those of us whose child was hospitalized, had medical procedures, or suffered before his last breath.

Is there a way to make the approaching days easier? My friend Brina called a friend and planned to attend a chapter of a grief support group in her area. In December, Pam sent out an email message letting others know that the anniversary date of the death of her daughter Paula was around the corner.

Pushing aside the pain and need to be heard is not wise. Reach out, and hopefully, those you reach out to will help to shoulder the monumental walk. Cliches don't substitute for comfort. Loving the broken-hearted is always a good practice.

This year I plan to invision God holding one of my hands and Daniel holding the other as I make my way through the flashbacks from January 22 leading up to February 2, 1997.

And I will continue to follow the advice of my four-year-old Daniel during his own demise: "Deep breaths, deep breaths. That will help me."