A story of grief and mother/daughter relationships, The Last Violet: Mourning My Mother explores on many levels one woman's journery from regret to inner peace. The author's thoughtful reflections, tense journal entries, and sensitive poetry offer heartwarming insight while bringing comfort to adult children and parents of any age.
In 1990 I planned to continue teaching piano to children as long as I could stand in my tennis shoes. But finding three primary cancers in my left breast shocked me to the toes of those shoes. The night before my first mastectomy, I wept as I wrote the poem, "Goodbye, Beloved Breast." Other poems followed. My oncologist said, "Do something with these."
So I added journal entries and reflections and wrote a book, Fine Black Lines: Reflections on Facing Cancer, Fear and Loneliness (1993, 2003). It was a bit out of character that I agreed to appear nude from the waist up on the cover of the October 1993 issue of Colorado Woman News. It is a bit unusual that my husband, Les, and I traveled over 400,000 miles mostly by car) while I spoke more than 550 times in all 50 United States, England, and Canada.
In 2001, Rosie Magazine (formerly McCall's) featured me and I appeared on the Rosie O'Donnell Show.
In 2002 I wrote The Last Violet: Mourning My Mother. For our 50th wedding anniversary I promised to write a book for Les. It took 11 years, but This Path We Share: Reflecting on 60 Years of Marriage came out in April 2010.
We live in Englewood, Colorado, and have four children, fourteen grandchildren, and eight great grandchildren.
