As the Holiday Season peaks and we rush head long into Christmas along with the closing of 2019 this is a love letter to all who have supported and cheered me on with my writing this year.
Many of you have asked so I wanted to let you know where I’m at with my memoir, You’ll Forget This Ever Happened.
While working on my book this year I experienced some thrilling moments, hours and weeks on end, but with it came hours and weeks of tragedy and loss. In the first half of the year two of my beloved girlfriends lost their husbands to cancer. That was especially hard to see them struggle and find their way after losing their greatest loves, their partners in life.
Within a month my best friend of over 60 years, my Nancy, died at 69 from cancer as well. She and all of us thought she had more time, but she had a swift decline and with that decline she took part of me with her. Just when I felt stronger after that incredibly hard loss, one of my baby brothers, Tommy passed away. He was 64. His death was not as much of a shock, because he had been in terrible health, but my heart split in two again.
Life has a way of handing out the hard times and then rewarding us with many blessings that sometimes we miss when those hard times consume us. I experienced this phenomenon all throughout the year.
As I reeled from the hurt and loss, I had to stop and realize that overall our family was well and healthy. Our 6 adult children, their spouses and partners were doing well in their careers and their children, our nine grands, were thriving as well. Our youngest son married the love of his life and now at the end of the year we learned the glorious news that we will be welcoming our 10th grandchild next summer.
Many times during the year I pinched myself as I sat writing and rewriting my book as I realized how far we had all come over the years. I would look at my husband, Gene and think about our long and windy road of a marriage. We will celebrate our 39th year of marriage next week and there is still no one on earth I would rather spend life with than him.
Good things happened with my continued path of writing my book. I was active in writing classes and served as President of the San Diego Memoir Association all year. I was fortunate enough to attend a first-class writing conference in Pennsylvania in July, attending a play lab, where I wrote a short skit about my story. I experienced Yale and New Haven, Conn. with a dear friend and my high school journalism teacher who I had not seen in 53 years that same month.
In April my author web site came alive. I found myself incredibly fortunate to be asked to do an interview with Dani Shapiro on her fantastic podcast, Family Secrets. Within weeks they hit over a million in listeners. If you haven’t listened to it, please do. https://www.familysecretspodcast.com/podcasts/the-secret-son.htm. Many of you have reached out to me during the year after hearing the podcast and I appreciate each and every one of your emails.
In June I won a place for the third year in a row in the San Diego Memoir Showcase contest, meaning a third publication under my belt in 2020. It was just as thrilling the third time to hear this news as the first time in 2017.
And all through the busy and eventful year I worked on my 3rd draft of my book. I had it edited again and now I am in the process of finding beta readers for my book. I have revised, edited it until I cannot see straight and have good news, I am closer than ever to publishing.
And this is what I wanted to tell you most of all… that your continued interest and inspirational stories have kept me going. It is not easy writing a memoir, well writing anything that you plan to publish and share with others. Life gets in the way, procrastination looms, self doubt flourishes, yet you forge ahead.
I have plowed through so much research when I wasn’t sure how much to trust my memories from 52 years ago. 1967 was a long time ago! At times I found myself angry once more at the injustice in the way unwed mothers were treated at that time and how adoptions were handled. But the fact that my son is back in my life and we are connected in such a powerful way has softened that anger and frustration. I am truly striving to live in the moment and not the past as I spend hours writing about the past.
What are you doing for the holidays? I’d love to hear from you.
This Christmas will find us with our family here at our home in So Cal. As busy and chaotic as that gets is there anything better? Through laughter and tears over the years, there is one thing I know for sure. For me just hearing my grown children tell their stories of our past Christmases as they roar and watching my grandchildren grow, their eyes shiny and bright, and having my husband look over at me with love in his eyes, well… there is no better gift.
I wish all of you a lovely holiday spent in the exact way that you find the most joy and please know I am forever grateful to each and everyone of you who have signed up on my website, www.lauralengel.com.
Good health and cheer and here’s to a blessed and joyful 2020.
Warmly,
Laura L. Engel
Dec. 2019