itsawonderfilledlife

I have a plan this summer.

It is always good to have a plan, though I know too well the truth in that saying about how the best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry.

This summer my plan is to finish writing a book that I started

s—o l–o–n–g a–g–o

Actually, I even ‘planned’ to complete it two previous summers, but my love of refinishing furniture trumped my desire to get that writing done. This year, there are only two small refinishing projects, as I no longer have storage space for furniture, since moving to a townhouse, so I am determined to complete it.

This book is a story that began to form in my mind many years ago, about a woman, Amara, with Alzheimer’s disease. I needed to get it into words, so I began writing a new part and publishing it here, on itsawonderfilledlife, once a week. If you would like to check it out, click on Unfading.

I am still not sure what propelled me to begin writing this, as I had no close connection to anyone with the disease when I began writing. In the past year, though, my father’s two sisters, one older and one younger, have been moved into full care facilities, as they continue to live with the effects of this disease. Perhaps my inclination to write was birthed out of a need to have my heart prepared, softened, for what was to come in their lives.

Recently, while visiting family on the other side of the country, I got to visit my aunt, while she was still living in the home of her adult years. A last visit that I recounted in the post I Forgot. It was in the writing of that post, recalling what would most certainly be my last earthly visit with her, that created this drive within me to finish this book, to spend this summer with Amara.

So, that is my plan for the summer, a summer of forgetting and remembering, a summer with Amara.