This warm sunny day in early February brings me to my River that looks like a sheet of glass in the still air. It makes me remember it has been quite a space of time since I talked with you, my internet friends. Perhaps you remember I had gone to a local adult retirement manor, rented a villa, and settled in for a year to write the biography of my dear mother. This had been one of my lifetime dreams.

     How grateful I was that God had already prepared this for me in my mind and heart.  I did not use a note, except for birthdates of her siblings, and the book flowed forth. Within twelve weeks it was finished from when I started in November. My girlfriend retyped it for me and it lay in my desk waiting for a publisher. Now it was March 2003 and I planned to return to my home in Coles Point in the fall, which I did, although help was necessary. On April 6, 2003 I got what I thought was to be a simple pedicure and it changed my life. I was down for one and a half years and experienced three surgeries, being told after the second, I would never get better.  Meanwhile after denial, I felt a second opinion was necessary, consulted a surgeon in Richmond, and an operation in June 2004 changed my life again. By August 2004 I was riding the mower again, did more Fall cleaning and lawn work than I had done in years. One year before in November, I was close to death. 

     Meanwhile in April 2004 I found a local publisher who did a great job publishing my book and brought the 500 copies to my home one week after the June surgery.My dear friend, Emily Cary, whom you have read in Chesapeake Style responded to our editor, Janet Fast, that she would be glad to review my book and I am grateful for the fine job she did. It has been received well and blessed many lives and has been what I intended it to be, a real honor to my mother. You may have me send you a copy by calling me at 804-472-3367. The cost is $10.00 plus $4.00 for postage and handling. 

     While I was down with both feet in the air in the summer of 2003 I asked God what He wanted me to do. He told me to start my next book about the children that I had tutored at their home or mine since 1952. I had only written two pages when my illness became too bad to continue. But this September God insisted I begin anew and I am off to a wonderful start. To proclaim what a great God He is, He has already put the next book in my head and heart which I hope to begin in January 2006, if not before.  

     My mission work is bigger than it has been in years; I have decided to take more nature walks, which I love, especially those on the river; and have rid myself of some peoples’ baggage which I have been carrying too many years. The Christmas Season was one of the healthiest and happiest months of my life and I was most grateful.  

     Life is a challenge, my mind and heart are young, and though the calendar and arthritic hands disagree, I shall follow my heart with every new day.

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