Out to dinner with friends, the question came from a retired newspaper man: when did you become a professional writer? I had to give it some thought because I don’t know what constitutes a professional writer? Or is it something more? Could it be that a profession is defined by passion?

Along my storied past I’ve described myself as a Jane of All Trades. I’ve also quipped that I have Doer-A.D.D., a term that provokes a chuckle from others. I wasn’t always proud of my self-proposed label but now I am. Be it bookkeeper, telephone operator, construction laborer, mother, childcare provider, counselor, mediator, tutor, I followed my curiosity into so many of the roles I’ve taken on in life.

Professional writers run the gamut from novelists to professors to journalists to freelancers. I fit in there some where if not everywhere. I’m writing a novel, two actually. I’ve worked in academia tutoring student athletes in writing in subjects such as philosophy and theology. My freelance career is taking a turn toward more journalistic subjects like what makes a resilient neighborhood. But a professional writer also teaches and that is something I love immensely, to teach the craft of writing, to teach people who to evoke a message that means something both to them and to a more universal audience.

Where does that leave me now?

This summer, after going through the process of acceptance in the University of Kentucky Masters of Fine Arts in Writing, I had a discussion with the director. I knew when I applied that the geographic issue would be a challenge, an hour and a half with good traffic, good weather. But I forged ahead until my conversation with Professor Millward.

I had growing concern over the investment of time, the need to be part of a community, and knowing that I’m not as invincible as I once was. He pointed out that it is expected that I be on campus for gatherings in order to truly invest in the community of writers, which is what many people desire, a community of writers.

After that conversation, I determined (with the help of my writing wife) that the possibilities of publication were within my reach without extending myself to yet another program, another place to work at forming a community.

What I know now is that I truly just wanted the certificate, not trusting that when I didn’t attend Vermont College of Fine Arts years ago but rather accomplished many of the educational needs through workshops, forming communities of writers here and around the country. I have come to believe that I am a good writer with lots of smarts to see things through and along the way I am getting paid.

This summer, I have truly learned to trust myself, my path. And isn’t that what being a professional is all about, trust in yourself that you are doing the work that makes you happy? There has always been a mingling of profession definition and passion. You go into a profession because to do otherwise would not make for happiness.

As I polish my website, add in my accomplishments in writing, the list is long and goes back to 2010 when I wrote for a sustainable farm, being paid in food. Perhaps that fueled the instinct to continue even in the face of imposter syndrome, inability to settle, the challenges of publishing-be it books, essays, articles. However, sixteen years later, I still have things to say. I also know that, in choosing to be a writer, as long as technology allows me to produce pages I have the opportunity to be professional.

Writers tend to carve paths of curiosity without thought to where it will lead. As I prepared this stack for publication, I went through sixteen years of photos that tell the story of someone with a desire to be a writer, writng professional. And, while my path may not have been a traditional one, who’s to say whether it’s a legitamate path or not. Everyone has the right to become, and becoming often leads to claiming. I claim my place in the world as a professional writer.

As part of my ongoing project to reignite my professional life, I looked at my website for clues on what to do next. I love how Spectrum Design co-created a sweet reflection of my work life.

Reading through the pages on my site as it is, I came to realize that much of the content is dated to a time before a few major life events shook my world. This project began in 2023 when I finally gave up on thinking I knew how to create all aspects of a professional looking website. Prior to that, I believed I had all that was needed, a good organization like WIX, and lots of pictures.

Lauren of Spectrum Design listened to my needs and implemented the current iteration of the look and feel of the site. She left content to me. As I began to read my existing content, I started to feel as if I was reading about someone else.

Much has changed since 2023, just three short years ago. I put aside my professional life because my priorities had changed dramatically. For the next year, I centered on my husband’s care as a prostate cancer patient. The term: Drop of a Hat became a major part of our lives together because we needed to pivot from work to doctor’s appointments, treatments, travel for care.

My husband was diagnosed with a rare and aggressive form of thyroid cancer in March of 2024 while still struggling with metastatic prostate cancer. At that point he was determined to make it to a retirement date of July 25th. Little did we know what lie ahead. Priorities became caring for him and I forgot everything else but keeping him alive and helping our children navigate this reality.

It’s been two years plus since he died in June, 2024. Since then, two new babies have been born to our family. I have begun to recapture a sense of what is important and fulfilling in my life. I am understanding that the first person I must care for is myself, and in so doing, be able to care for others.

Passion versus income has been a big point of contention for me. Until meeting my husband, my focus had always been on making enough money to survive. Throughout our married life I continued to operate from the mode of survival. Loosing my husband has forced me to see beyond a definition of success so shallow that it only hit a bottom line.

The last two years I’ve had to steer the financial ship alone. A scary proposition for someone like me. The discipline to make sound decisions doesn’t come easy but with time I have been able to come to terms with abundance and it’s full meaning.

Written in erasible marker on my mirror is this quote, the title of Ina Garten Memoir, Be ready when the luck happens. I listened to the book on audio and took away so much wisdom from a long career. But the one thing that sticks with me more than anything else is that preparation and discipline are key to knowing when you are being presented with a lucky opportunity.

When survival mode is the only mode you know, then the work to get to abundance is missed. I am now in a position of feeling an abundance, not monetary wealth per se. I’m in a position to pursue passions and not be a slave to someone elses measure of success.

The website refresh is an opportunity for me to center on what brings me fulfillment, joy, and my measure of success which has nothing to do with making a buck. Creating opportunities for others to grow into better writers no matter their purpose or skill set gives me great satisfaction. Visiting characters I’ve created and figuring out their stories are a life blood that courses through my veins with a chance to craft really good stories.

I’ll keep you abreast of my work and the website. A number of opportunities for us to work together will be found there for fall 2026 and spring 2027. One opportunity I’m designing is a Stay-cation Retreat at a local site. The idea is to take a weekend to write with the opportunity to sleep in your own bed each night after the sessions.

Stay tuned!!

Until next time, here’s a video of two of the grands singing a favorite song.

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My son sent this bowl as a gift. It represents the art of Kintugi, a Japanese art form to repair pottery with gold, silver, or brass filling the seams. He said we have had so much brokenness in recent years that it was a symbol of how we can grow stronger, repairing those broken parts of ourselves.

I am in the midst of physical therapy trying to pinpoint issues that keep recurring in my hips and back. The Body Keeps The Score is a New York Times Best Seller that proposes bodily issues relate to trauma that can be related to the spirit and mind as well. Times when I abused my body are many: falling off the top of a 7 foot ladder, too many falls from horses, tumbles while walking, car accidents. I wonder what is holding me together these days. How gold traces along these areas that have been painful for so long, mending the jagged edges of trauma from abuses that happened to me.

Story telling always has a narrative arc to it, a beginning, middle, and end. Stories are told in an organized fashion by communicating through words. Trauma is a physical response.

The first time I went to a party after John died, dicomfort rumbled through my stomach as people approached me, wanted to hold me in their gaze, or tell me how they could understand my pain. My body revolted, I ran from that place, and cowered at home, afraid, exhausted, angry, resentful. Still, I couldn’t put my finger on why.

Here’s what I know about how writing can heal the wounds we carry. An idea forms in the brain, it travels down the neck, into the heart. Finds its way to the shoulder, the elbow, the wrist, and hand until ultimately it is captured on the page. A type of letting go happens that doesn’t necessarily dispense with the trauma but somehow reshapes it.

Writing is like a liquified gold in an inkwell, filling the pen with opportunity to become whole. Writing about my father made him breathe and move across the page. In the work on the memoir, my mother took shape beyond the haggard woman I knew to become a sophisticated younger woman that my father fell in love with.

“They call it kintsugi. The pot is shattered, then carefully reassembled with a resin mixed with gold. It symbolizes how we must incorporate our wounds into who we are, rather than try to merely repair and forget them.”
― David Wong,

I learned from a jeweler once the a liquid ounce of 24 karat gold can cover nearly 300 square feet of land. Imagine what a writer and her pen could cover. That’s more than a mile in length. Still the gold is sturdy, substantial, untarnished by elements.

This bowl reminds me to embrace human flaws and life’s fragility, both mine and those around me. Imperfections signal a life lived in all its wounds and the precious mineral that connects the pain and suffering to the richness of a person who has perservered. It’s a symbol of how to turn adverisity into something beautiful and resilient.

Meditating on the bowl and it’s beauty, there is a sense that I can heal from my wounds and embrace imperfections to become stronger. No matter how difficult the time, like piecing together a broken bowl, it’s possible to reframe and find meaning again. Things are bound to fall apart, its part of the human experience. But there is always a path forward. A writing practice can be the filagree that holds the pieces in a new way.

Some might look at these past two years from outside of me and think that I have dilly-dallied enough. “Time to get on with it,” they might say. I look at this time differently, as a gift that my husband gave to me when he diligently squirreled away money for a time when he would not be around. In mourning, then day-to-day grief, the most notable experience has been trying to remember all the things I forgot or put aside in the past several years caring for him. And then the lapses of memory that coincide with deep grief. It might look like early onset dementia or menapause, but in reality is more about the energy it takes to care for someone with cancer.

In October last year, I hired a business coach to help me recapture aspects of my professional life as a book coach. For ten weeks we worked on schematics and scenarios, wrote messages on mirrors to help me find the strength to believe in my talents again. We made spidery maps that connected revenue streams with desirability, because I know now that some things are compelling while others no longer serve me.

By the end of December I had a plan and the courage to believe that what I offered had worth. I also began manifesting positive thoughts about things working out rather than going to fear about my lack of abilities.

I have recently returned from the Pacific Northwest to visit friends and take some time for myself. My friends live in a golf community with pristine fairways, tall trees, filtered sunlight, and bird songs. One night during my visit, we rode in their golf cart to the club for dinner. I remarked that they looked so happy.

I became aware of the use of one word: Perfect! I used it, my hosts used it, dinner guests, clerks, waiters; the word was everywhere. Because the life I’ve lived has been far from perfect, I might have viewed use of the word as less than, well, perfect. But here’s the thing, I had planned a detailed vacation. Visiting these true friends, a boat ride to Victoria Island, even a stay in the most perfect hotel: the Fairmont Empress. Perfect, just perfect. Even the flights home through French-speaking Canada were perfect.

As a writer and a writing coach, I know that what we are trying to attain is some understanding about the challenges we have faced in life. Each of the people I’ve worked with have some depth of knowledge about struggle, imperfection, sadness, grief…the list goes on.

While dining at the club in the PNW my friend, (we’ll call him Greg) introduced me as his muse, his writing muse.

I host writing circles as part of a pilgrimage program and Greg’s first foray into writing came on one of those trips. He wanted to leave after the first day, convinced it wasn’t right for him. That afternoon, I invited him to join our circle. Like some magic switch had been flipped in him, Greg was hooked. What poured out onto the page has become a compilation of poems he plans to publish. I can’t wait to see the finished product. The work is insightful and the audience he will sell to will be excited for something so unique and universal at the same time.

It’s people like Greg who have a willingness to go deeper into those scabs of life that tend to gnaw at them. To put their pens to paper and find a way through to better understanding of the things that won’t let go of them . That is why I do this work.

Lighting a match and putting it to the wick of a candle that smells of amber and incense is part of a ritual for my writing. It ignites in me a willingness to put my own work out into the world. I am in the process of publication of my first book, a generational memoir. A story that has raised my parents from the dead, bringing my father to life, a man I never knew. The ritualistic nature of writing the story coincides with this new growth pattern that I’m living.

Here’s a glimpse at the renovations that I’ve accomplished in the first half of 2026

• Hosted a vision board workshop to a sol-out crowd.

• Edited projects for two clients

• Completed six freelance projects, three of which were feature articles.

• Interviews with two local authors about their newly published books.

• Continued working with individual clients.

• Hosted a 4-part series on how to Put Your Story into Words.

• Worked on moving publication of The Afterthought: A Generational Memoir.

A writing business is complicated. I’ve been managing mine for many years now, but I always feel that there is room for reinvention. I keep in the back of my mind that it isn’t about perfection, only about progress.

My workspace is littered with a roll of banner paper. I love working with this in both planning business projects and book layouts. I have two lengths of banner paper each with sets of dreams, desires, and goals. One is the work I did with my business coach in the fall, the other is the beginnings of a five-, three-, and one-year plan with ways to implement all of it with tasks oriented to each day, week, month. I’ve learned that planning isn’t about a list of tasks but about the things that matter and how to achieve the end goals.

My goal is to keep moving. Keep focusing on the path ahead while honoring those who lift me up, those who encourage my work, those who find value in my service to the written word.

It’s Father’s Day, 2026. I have been ruminating about this American holiday for a while now. Growing up in the sixties, in a time when most mothers stayed home while fathers went to work, my home was different. No dad. In fact, my first recollection of having a dad came when I was four years old, sitting at our kitchen table during a thunderstorm. My brother, just two years older, asked if the passing thunder meant that our dad was bowling with angels. Epiphany is usually reserved for profound moments and this was the first of so many in my life.

There’s no need to express sympathies for my lack of a father. Mine died before I was born. Just a fact of my life that took many years to understand.

In my forthcoming book, I write about the origin of my name. My mother told the story often and I have brought it to life, imagining the scene that had devolved into my mother’s story that i was named for a sexy actress who played Ginger on Gilligan’s Island. Writing this book has put flesh to a man, given him laughter and movement, a strong, quiet voice, a love for horses that flows in my blood in an undeniable way.

This Father’s Day, I celebrate all that he’s given me. There is so much more than my name. Please enjoy this excerpt from The Afterthought: A Generational Memoir.

The Naming: November, 1956

They’d been married a little over a year when Louise found out she was pregnant with her first born, named for the man responsible for introducing them six years before this night. Louise had been pregnant with Paul in Utah, far from her Midwestern home when Nels got a call to come to the family farm in the dead of night. A mare had gone into labor, but it was a breech that needed more than two hands.

When he returned the next day, a smarmy look on his face, he said, “I told you it would be a colt, just like that young buck you’re carrying.” Back then he had rubbed her burgeoning belly, slurped his ever-present coffee, a cowboy’s friend and said, “This little one, a boy for sure.”

Now in the dwindling days neither of them wanted to face, under lamplight glow in a tiny apartment far from Utah, in the hills of Kentucky by the Ohio River, Louise set a plate of half-eaten cake down and faced him. She searched his sallow eyes for the man he who predicted their first born four years earlier, but guilt and shame seemed to be her constant companion. She’d taken him away from his life, his family, his beloved Wasatch mountains.

“I’m so sorry,” she said. Confusion washed over his face. It gave her pause. “I’m sorry I made you move.” Tears bubbled up.

“Oh, Sweet Ole Girl, now don’t give that another thought. We have everything right here.” His gaze fell on the bedroom door where their two boys slept. “I’m happy wherever you are, don’t you know that by now?”

He slid his plate of cake, mostly untouched, on the coffee table and faced her. His hands swirled over her belly. A flutter of movement surprised her at his touch. Must be indigestion, too early for the child. Still, she’d like to think the child was responding to his touch. The faintest smile washed over his face as her blouse became a rumple of material just under her bra. He laid his cheek to her spongy body and said, “Hey there little one.” He glanced at Louise as the sultry sound of words from the radio melded with his nodding head brushing along her skin. He said, “Tina, Tina Louise, that’s her name.”

Just like a cowboy, she thought, to come up with something like that. “So, you want to name our baby after a singer on the radio? What if it’s a boy?”

“This will be a girl, no question, and, yeah, that singer sounds so beautiful, just like you, Sweet Ole Girl. I like the feel of that name when I say it: Tina Louise, it’s got a nice ring to it.” The warmth of his hand flew from her belly and left just a hint of knowing as he took up his dish once more, and said, “It’s kind of like honey dribbling off a biscuit, Tina Louise.” His voice dropped a register; bass undertones accentuated the statement. Louise stared into his eyes, life still there but fading.

As I understand it, a flying lead change, a term that refers to horsemanship, isn’t what you might think. Sounds like some acrobatic feat when in reality it appears to be like a dance step that leads a horse to gracefully step into the change of direction through manuevers that, to the untrained eye, looks effortless. In reality it is well calculated directional change that both horse and rider make together.

Today is the 26th Anniversary of my marriage to John Neyer. Like a love letter, I remember and know that today as I move forward. Gulls wake noisey and insistent in the soft light of morning as I write this love letter to John in the Pacific Northwest. He grows in ways in my heart not thwarted by challenges of family, business, friends. He is the soft love that underpins my world now.

Life took on a different hue in a TGI Fridays when he’d come home from a trip to visit his best friend and his wife. John took many walks with Cyndy during his stay with them. On their last walk, she said, “You know your in love with her.”

In Fridays, he told me about the trip, the ultimate question simmering below the surface of his words. I could read him like a book. Maybe that’s why we worked so well together. “Do you want to ask me something?”

He hesitated. But then said, “Let’s get married.” Like we’d talked about it before. We hadn’t. In fact, we both were so cautious because of our histories. Like Cinderella when she tried on the shoe, a big house, kids to play with kids, a man who had more patience than Job came into my life that day, two years before June 3, 2000.

It was only the beginning.

My word for this year is pivot, to change direction, to let go of perfection for the sake of making progress. The dance is sometimes messy as I learn the steps, learn the way to make choices that work best for me. I can never forget these years with John. He was so impish, so full of fun, and could make me laugh at a moments notice.

Pivot, lead change, they are present in my world these days when I am forming new community, new behaviors, new ways of caring for myself. I trust that I will carry John with me into this new way of being. In many ways he continues to be my lead especially in my backward motions fearful of what over my shoulder.

Take good care of yourself always.

We said goodbye to Nutmeg. Many of you may know her from my Facebook and Instagram feeds. When I made the decision to provide a respectable end to her physical life I called the vet first to verify that my thinking was reasonable. She’d been passing bloody stools for a day by then. The vet went through a checklist of things and I vascillated between taking her for a couple of shots to calm her gut or listening to my intiution, knowing that it would not help.

Then the vet said, “Better to be two weeks early than a day late.” And I knew then that I wanted this beautiful loving animal to die with dignity.

The clock started ticking in early February. Surgery to remove 2 tumors. Two weeks for biopsy results. Shades of John’s journey April, 2024, another biopsy, another surgery, and waiting. Malignant tumors sent us to a veterinary oncologist, an ultrasound, numerous growths on the liver, spleen, stomach: prognosis 1 to 3 months.

Meds for comfort and ease. Three of us listened to the passing of time. As we had done in those last days with John, we lived fully into Nutmeg’s life. Snuggles, kisses, bones to gnaw on that added chomping noises to the soundtrack of a too-quiet house. Porch-sitting was her favorite.

I called Angels' Paws prematurely on March 15 to have them attend to Nutmeg on March 16. I didn’t want her to suffer the way John had when cancer wound its way through his thyroid, bones, maybe lungs, maybe other places. My son advised me that dogs process pain in a different way than humans. I knew ten-minute increments of life would be best for our household. The arduous process to learn how to let go of her, of John-again began.

Sweet Eloise showed up in a Pippy Longstocking sort of way with her dad ahead of Dr. Katie Thursday, April 16. Sprite-like inquisitiveness led to questions and comments directed at Dr. Katie.

She had a McDonald’s cheeseburger for Nutmeg, meant as a distraction to the syringe full of meds to relax her. When Dr. Katie pulled it from her magical black case. Nutmeg dove for it, and Dr. Katie had the syringe ready to administer to pinched skin at her shoulders.

Eloise perked up, “I had a cheeseburger for dinner last night.”

When Nutmeg’s legs wobbled, Eloise drew closer to me. I told her that Nutmeg was seeing pink elephants on parade.

“Like in Dumbo, right?” She asked.

I made eye contact with Dr. Katie.. We smiled, each of us imagining our own reels of Pink Elephants on Parade, Dumbo and Timothy Q. Mouse hallucinating. Nutmeg gave in to laying down, her head coming to rest in my hand.

In the soft light of a spring morning, we talked as if normalcy played a part in all of this. Dr. Katie reached into her bag of tricks again, this time bringing out a tourniquet to wrap around Nutmeg’s hind leg.

The inquisition continued from Eloise. “What’s that,” she asked.

In terms a 5-year-old can understand, Dr. Katie said, this is to help the medicine go into her system the right way. Dr. Katie held a blue butterfly clip in her hand and

Eloise said, “it looks like a butterfly.”

“It reminds me of a dragonfly.” Dr. Katie said.

I put my hand to my neck in search of the dragonfly necklace John had given me long ago only to find in my haste and distraction of the morning, I hadn’t put it on.

Soon after the needle administered the cerum, Nutmeg’s tongue slipped from her mouth. I’d like to think of it as the last kiss she gave me. And then she was gone and we were left only with her essence.

I’m not sure when is the right time for a child to learn about death. Certainly not like children in war-torn regions must face. But sweet Eloise has faced circumstances that would bend even the most mature of people. Her Papa died two years ago, and brave as she can be, Eloise has come to know better what that loss means by the loss of Olive, her family dog. She can face death not with fear but with courage and curiosity.

Eloise, Wayne and I were pallbearers to escort Nutmeg to the back of Dr. Katie’s car. Dr. Katie gave me a sheet of paper with 10 steps to surviving pet loss. She said, “Grief takes lots of energy so make sure you eat.” Then she opened her arms to me and asked if she could give me a hug. I blessed her shoulder with unrelenting tears. They drove away and we returned to the emptiness of a home.

I had no problem fulfilling steps 1 and 2 on the sheet of paper. Eat and cry. From there, the suggestions encompass reasonable actions. Find something to do. Or as I say often, do what’s right in front of you, a massage, ice cream, playing in the park.

Count your blessings, a bit harder to do when Nutmeg died so young, only 6 years old and a part of John that has left a larger chasm than when she was alive.

Reflect on things that don’t involve your pet.

Cuddle something furry, a great way to sooth yourself.

Avoid irrevocable decisions, or don’t get impetuous and throw everything away that once belonged to your pet.

Replace negative imagery. Rather than focusing on her last moments think about where she might be now. A male robin has been beating against the picture window, just like birds had beat against it when John was trying to get to the other side. Was that you, John?

The last 2 suggestions go hand in hand. Be honest with yourself. Admit the deep wound this loss leaves and know that true healing comes when we can sit in the pain.

And finally, make a decision to work through grief. This period of mourning can take root in your soul if you let it. Remember the goodness of such a beautiful pet.

Nutmeg stuck to me like glue after John died. When I cried, she stayed close enough to lick my tears away. Her ability to cuddle close when loneliness encompassed me helped me to feel some sense of John nearby.

I am reminded of an article in : What’s the best thing to happen out of this situation? The best thing has been the memory of a tree-walking-coonhound with deep brown eyes that never caste a hateful look on another being. A cat chaser. A dog who could jump from floor to back of couch without a care. A partner in grief.

Ours’ was a good goodbye. When I cry I remember her undying love for John and me. I close my eyes and remember how she died with dignity, surrounded by love.

Nora Mcinerny of #hotyoungwidowsclub says we don’t move on just forward. In the past several months forward moementum has meant finishing projects such as The Afterthought: a generational memoir that, in writing, helped me to discover my parents in a new light. It has also meant regaining firm ground as a writer, coach, and workshop leader. Then there is figuring out how many of John’s “things” to keep close since I can’t have his physical presence near.

I wrote what feels like a nearly complete essay on my first time back at a newly remodeled Playhouse in the Park on my phone in the darkened theater Saturday afternoon. (I’m not one of those annoying people who light up their screen during a play, I waited till Intermission). Like my life, parts of the physical building have changed dramatically while some pieces of our life, our need for entertainment, are lodged in a stone wall, a rotating stage, the memories of joy we felt, I felt, in the priveledge to have a life my mother would have killed to live.

She knew only barriers, not freedom. Her life predetermined from childhood, though she had musical talent. Duty-bound to her family, a confining church, and the prison of striving to be good in the eyes of others, superceded any drive in artistic expression. She’d been tagged with the nicknames Tiny Lightning and Black Sheep as a child but grew out of those names only to be haunted my a drive to fit in.

As I sit in the fresh morning darkness preparing for the week ahead, I’m reminded of a scene in the play about Agatha Christie’s mysterious disappearance. Her character, Hercule Poirot speaks to a grieving Agatha about the need to write so that she can deepen the stories she puts into the world, to enrich them with emotions that serve a broader audience.

A woman sitting next to me in the theatre introduced herself as someone from the arts industry who would interview the character of Miss Marple. She must have noticed my nodding in agreement with Monsieur Poirot as he called for young Agatha to write richer stories.

Eleven years ago, I applied and was accepted into a top-tier Master of Fine Arts program. In the weeks leading up to the start of the semester, a chaotic holiday season and a sense of duty, not unlike that my mother experienced long before me, led to rescinding the offer to study in Vermont. My rational mind had kicked in. Kids in college and no guarantees that I could justify the cost by earning a living as a writer.

In the past few years I learned of a scholars program at public universities in Kentucky for residents over the age of 65 to take classes, enter a field of study, get a masters degree, PhD, all for free. My world changed with John’s death and I have settled into taking care of myself. The dream of an M.F.A. is coming to fruition. I’ve been accepted for the fall semester, 2026 at the University of Kentucky.

During my return to school between 1998 and 2003, I would sit in one kitchen or another, never allowing my children to make excuses regarding homework. If I could do it, so could they.

“Knowledge is power,” I’d say as I poured over Spanish, Plato, Jung, Freud, and all the components of first a Bachelor’s Degree in Liberal Arts and then a Masters in Counseling. Perhaps that drive was fueled by the image of my mother, bedraggled and duty-bound to raise 3 kids alone, never able to realize her dream of making music.

I was nine years old when she bought a piano on credit. She said it was so I could learn to play. I guess she didn’t get it after I stole money for dance lessons, that dance, piano playing was her dream, not mine.

But, to watch her light down on the piano bench, her elegant finger hesitating on the ivory before they ran the keys first in a Boogie Woogie and then a haunting rendition of Moonlight Sonata. Not before or after would I witness the light in her eyes as she played.

My compulsion, my desire has been pen to page moments to deepen and enrich my understanding of myself and the world around me.

I am finally coming into my own.

Those of you who know me, know that I have been working on a book-length project that brings my parents to life on the page. They walk, they talk, they turn, their stage is a diorama set in motion as if in a blackbox theatre.

I had an aluminum dollhouse with plastic furniture, muslin towels and blankets, but no human figures. Dreams of what it might be like to be in a family that fit the story of a dollhouse, mom and dad, siblings who had the strong hand of a father to keep them in line. The dollhouse didn’t last long but the memory of something far more perfect that my reality remained.

Several years ago, I took a writing class at Women Writing for (a) Change that had a profound effect on my memories. It will always be the birthplace of this generational memoir I call: The Afterthought.

In case you haven’t taken a class that generates new ideas, here’s how it went: A poem was read, a check-in with each writer, and prompts to write to in fifteen minutes or less.

That particular day, in a cozy quilted atmosphere the prompt I wrote to was: What was happening when you were in utero? My pen hit the page and I never looked back. It began with the world, the community, family. But the profound lines that followed had everything to do with the astonishing thought that my father knew I existed even though he’d be dead before my birth.

From there, pages began to fill with who he was, how he moved, what he might have said, the sound of his voice, mannerisms. Then, because he lived 42 years, there were stories that came to life between my mother and him. before they met, and the stories of her in her life.

All this is to say, that each of us have stories inside waiting to come out. Maybe it isn’t a true ficiton like my project, maybe it’s a memoir, or just a snapshot of a family in a time of life when something important happened.

Join me for 4 Saturdays in March: 7, 14, 21, 28 for Writing Workshop Series: Putting your personal story into words. I’ll be teaching in my hometown, a place where around every corner there is a story for me. You can bring whatever spurs you to write, that nagging voice that won’t let you go.

Email me: Tina Neyer at tina.neyer@gmail.com. Please note: due to popular demand we will now meet at the Dayton Ky. Community and Meeting Center, 625 2nd Ave, Dayton, KY 41074.

The Dayton Heritage Museum sits on the main drag of my hometown. Years ago, when Charlie Tharp sold the building and the contents to the City of Dayton, Kentucky he did so with the caveat that there be a museum on the site. He loved Dayton, was a hometown boy with a real estate and insurance business. To say he knew every house in Dayton would be an understatement. He knew everyone in those homes as well.

Over the past 15 years, I’ve served on the board at the museum. There, I’ve uncovered stories so unusual and so beautiful that I have been compelled to create this workshop. The stories that people have in their memories are so important to the formation of a town. Dayton is no different.

From the earliest days of the city history was made by common people living and working in a small town. Those stories matter. For instance, did you know that one of the most famous collegiate basketball coaches in history started his career in Dayton learning how to coach in the town? Could you ever imagine a parade of horse-drawn carts bringing a circus to town, setting up a big top on a field near the river? Or how about the mansion on the hill? Who owned that house? What was his purpose in life? Did you know that Tacoma Pool once was an amusement park replete with boxing ring, dog track, dance hall, roller coaster, and yes a pool? How many students of the schools in Dayton went on to become scientists, mathmeticians, published authors?

Where we come from matters as much as the houses we grew up in. They tell their own story. I had the pleasure of going through the first house I truly called home a few years back. Voices of my grandparents echoed as I climbed the stairs to the second floor where the blue tub, toilet and sink of my childhood remained. And what about the attic where I had a secret hiding place for a shoebox full of treasures. Stepping down wooden stairs with linoleum of green, black and red plaid to the basement reminded me of waiting at the bottom for my grandpa to finish his work in his darkroom. When the red light went off he’d come out and smile at me, take my hand and we’d head to the kitchen for lunch with my grandma.

You have stories to tell. I invite you to put them down on paper. I’ll walk you through how to ignite memory and fill blank pages with the richness of memories you have had in your mind. Put them down, whether for family or for a broader audience. Your legacy, that of your ancestors is important to how we live today.

Our house was replete with white paint on all of the woodwork when we bought it 8 years ago. It also had wallpaper everywhere, even in the kitchen where two layers of wallpapered drywall had covered original plaster that had a lovely paper from an era long ago. I left the paper removal to my husband. After his day job building large commercial projects, he loved picking at wallpaper like a monkey picks at its baby.

I, on the other hand, entertained removal of paint to get to original woodwork. Even the front door, mostly leaded glass, was covered in paint on the interior. The exterior of the door showed a beautiful oak, sturdy oak. Questions arose. How long had the paint been on the woodwork? Was it lead paint? Had latex been applied to somehow encase the lead? What were the ramifications of removal?

The burning question I arrived at though, when I surveyed the 5-inch baseboards on the first and second floors, the six inches of casement around each of 17 windows, 7-6 panel doors, I suffered a flashback to the seventies when I worked for a group restoring old buildings. My question was: Am I up to the task of removing the paint off all woodwork including balestrades, newel posts. and panels under the stairs?

The project I was involved in back then was a pre-Civil War era mansion turned office space. Ceiling heights at 24 feet, 12-foot windows framed in wood covered by paint in most areas. From the looks of the front entrance, a grand door and sidelights of the original wood, it would need a summer’s worth of linseed oil to revitalize it and take it back to its original grandeur. The owners wanted to see if the same could hold true for getting to the original wood in the kitchen before addressing other parts of the house.

I was charged with paint removal in the kitchen. No masks, no gloves. I smelled the fumes of paint removers 7 hours a day, 5 days a week, used putty knives and picks to get at 14 layers of paint, and employed a boat load of sandpaper. All summer long I played WSAI and WEBN on the radio and tried to think of anything else than the task at hand.The final layer of paint probably dated back to Victorian times when painted woodwork was fashionable. Once it was removed the wood was unremarkable, albeit old-growth pine. That is often the case. Expensive wood to make a grand statement at an entry but on woodwork in a kitchen, no.

Judging From The Past

Painted woodwork has it’s advantages. However, our first foray into historic homes as a married coupe was the one just prior to our current home. We fell in love with that place the minute we set foot in it. Nevermind that I nicknamed the man who did rehab before us, “Half-ass Harry” (but only in utter frustration when we uncovered issues with his work), we were undaunted by the amount of work that had to be undone. Thankfully the woodwork wasn’t one of those items.

The house had originally been owned by a circuit court judge. A grand entrance, a formal dining room with a door to a deck, a back staircase that I swear I would see a ghost of a figure that I named Esmerelda climbing to service the bedrooms on the second floor or to the third floor and the servants quarters. The woodwork was all original, the floors all original, mostly heart pine, a pine that has gone extinct. We counted ourselves lucky.

Challenges arose when I started looking at paint colors. Light in old houses change withe seasons, clouds and sunshine. It was hard to understand the best colors. An artist friend came for a visit and I plied him with questions. He stood in one corner of the foyer and looked from stained glass in the stairwell to the woodwork, to the dining room and gave us options for paint.

Sherwin Williams to the rescue. Honey Wheat for the living room, Carnation Pink (I cringe even writing that but I trusted him), and a deep Port Wine Red for the dining room. Fear and scepticism washed over my face and my friend said, “Just try it, if you don’t like it you can paint over it.” He was talking about the dining room color. I was no friend of dark colored rooms, I guess because I grew up sleeping in a tiny attic with only one window that usually had a fan it.

Bravely or perhaps insanely, I followed instructions. Much to my surprise the colors on the walls in that house seemed to speak to a story of a home where a man of means and his family happily went about their pursuits. I’ve since learned that a descendant of the judge is now a restauranteur with a number of successful restaurants. I can’t help but remember the coziness of that house when I visit one of those restaurants.

We left there only because of noise. I would have stayed there forever had it not been bordered by Interstate 471. For three years my husband and I would talk about the house and moving and I would say, “If only we could pick this house up and put it somewhere else.”

Steamed Milk

When we found our current home, it seemed to be the best iteration of the house we so loved, only a mile away and further from the noise. We began to make this place our home. Another creative friend stood in a corner of the foyer and studied the stained glass, a German painted glass transom we’d uncovered, light in the rooms, and the exisiting white woodwork, she suggested keeping it white. (I was happy to hear that.) She also showed me what she was seeing. From the corner of the foyer she could see into the family room beyond the painted transom. Then she moved to the family room and showed me the colorations from there into the living room. It had become a palette and the walls began to talk to her.

The other thing she said that made perfect sense was why white worked so well in old homes. Take for instance, our numerous stained glass windows. The living room light above the picture window has a beige border inside a deep blue border, apple green background to an ornate design of brown, deep read and a central image similar to a fleur de lis. She got out her Farrow and Ball color wheel and showed me a chip of Pear Green. She said, Sherwin Williams can match this color at a smaller price.

When my mouth twiched into a nervous smile, she said the same thing the artist had said, “If you don’t like it, paint over it.” The room came together with a gifted Persian rug from a friend of white with blues, pinks, reds in the design. In an insane Covid moment John and I stopped in a furniture store and found a swatch of red fabric I fell in love with. We ordered a couch that came in 6 months later because of plant closures due to the pandemic. Other rooms came together in a similar fashion and none of it could have happtened without painted woodwork.

The Purist in Me

From my time working on that kitchen in the seventies, I thought of myself as a perfectionist who wanted to make everything right by taking it back to its original state. I’ve stripped many things besides bedsheets since then, end tables, floors, a door or two.

I now see the wisdom of working with what exists already. Our beautiful home on the highway had 4 fireplaces, 5 bedrooms, beadboard ceilings in the attic, a room with a view (just like our dear Virginia Woolf), and that gorgeous original woodwork.

So often these days, people are quick to “make new” things that were never meant to be anything more than what already exists. Dumpsters outside old homes with plaster and lathe mounting; doors, windows gone and replaced with new, “energy efficient windows. (John always said, “you know why they call them replacement windows? Because you have to replace them every ten years or so”), and woodwork. It pains me to see the violation of historical integrity done by those who “flip” houses for a profit. If only…

I would never suggest to cover up original woodwork though. Walls can be painted to work with the variations in color in the old wood. We proved that in our other house. However, if you are in a home that already has painted wood, other possilities abound. It only takes the imagination to find ways to work with what you have. If there is one drawback to painted woodwork, it’s the fact that repainting is a must. It chips, dulls, and sometimes just needs a refresher. Still, I’m satified with it in this old house because of how it shows off the finer details of the house.

A few weeks ago, several women gathered in a local coffee shop to create vision boards. The practice is popular these days, almost as popular as yoga has been over the past 30 years. There’s a growing sentiment to create new, to find peace and calm in an unsettled world.

As I prepared for the workshop I realized that it isn’t just about cutting pictures and sayings out of magazines. It isn’t about scattering them on a form core board. It isn’t just about that finished product.

In preparation for the workshop it became important to help attendees to quiet their minds and put their thoughts down before they cut one image, glued one saying to their boards. The practice of a 15-minute writing session with prompts to guide the participants is a way to look back on the past year, be in the present moment, while thinking about the future and how they want to be in this world.

In three short hours, what had started as a group of people who didn’t know one another grew into a foundation of women, not necessarily like minded in all aspects of life, or in all passages of life, but a common bond around a common project. By the end of our time together, everyone had at least a start to their boards, and the greater gift was the formation of a community, however brief and however small, that led them into a more focused view of the year ahead.

January isn’t over yet and we are faced with unutterable shame and grief over things we cannot control, at least not in our homes, towns, friendships. What we can control is how we move about in the world. The women who attended the workshop were business women, retirees, people searching for health and happiness, women with purpose, women birthing something new.

Before everyone left, they shared their creations, giving voice to their intent for 2026. It is a critical part of the exercise to tell others what you want to be in the world. They left with a bit of homework: put the board someplace where you can see it everyday. Mine sits above the full length mirror in my dressing area, a place where I start my day assessing how “put together I am.”

Snow accumulates outside my window. Hope grows in my heart as I think about the word that bubbled up for me when I created my own vision board: Pivot. To be the “pivot” and to be flexible in a world that is changing at the speed of sound.

We started the year with our vision boards to guide us and help us remember who we are and where we are going. However, a vision board can be done any time of year for many reasons. Often when you are in a life-changing circumstance, it’s best to step back, look at it from every angle, finances, health, relationships, career, family. There is never a set time to implement this practice.

If you or a group you belong to would like to work with me and create visions for the future of yourself, your organization, I would love to work with you.

On a snowy December night, I sat near the front of Christ Church Cathedral in Cincinnati. The view was clear of the magnificent system of pipes like some Ozian magic. The figure of a man, the Church’s organist, danced his fingers over the tiered keyboards. His hands flew into the notes as he whipped the pages, his feet raced over pedals magically producing a cacaphony of sound to open a Christmas concert by Viva Voices.

The echo of John’s voice reverberated in my heart with the sound produced from 32-foot pipes, rich tones of the bass notes mingled with the memory of his words. Statistics, an acoustitian, three, maybe for years of calculated work, meetings with artisans and church officials, his legacy of collaboration filled my memories. He was there in music even though his talent for the piano was a three finger song parced out in staccato.

As the organist played a prelude, I felt a mingling of pride and humility for what my husband had accomplished. John strove to carry on his dad’s legacy in all of his pursuits. When he spoke of his dad, Ray Neyer, sooner or later the story of climbing into the tower of Saint Gertrude’s Church in Madeira would be surface. And yet, John had become masterful in his own right at church restorations and rebuilds.

During his days at Al.Neyer, Inc. John led job tours regularly to check on progress, inform his partners and project managers of issues and successes on jobs. John’s health had just begun to fail in November of 2023 when we decided to take our children on a job tour around Cincinnati to visit a few of the 1200 projects he had been involved in during his career.

Standing in front of the magnificent organ and pipes at Christ Church Cathedral, he told us that his dad had never done anything like the build out for installing such an instrument at this organ. He explained that it was handmade, a product of an artisan out of Tennessee. He shied away from accolades about his own expertise.

As snow blanketed our little globe of a city in December, I could feel the warmth of his hand in mine. I believe we can continue to have relationships with the dead, as Anderson Cooper says on his podcast All There Is . John’s visitation on a cold December night was an unmistakable gift that only with the passage of time that I can see that night in a most spiritual way.

Now, in mid-January, I am warmed by the memory of that night last month and fueled with the knowledge that as I strike out in this new year I have the ability to thrive knowing he is with me.

My granddaughter who is five years old, told me that her attendant during nap time at school said she has Santa’s phone number. The adult in that nap room likely used the announcement as a sort of threat to children who didn’t want to settle down.

“I have his number too,” I said. I didn’t tell her that we talk throughout the year, but not about who is good or bad. Rather, we talk about his travels with Ms. Claus, Chili dinners. We meet for coffee or a drink with Ms. Claus periodically now. It’s always important though to get an update on his writing. Where our friendship began. With his blog called Stories from the North Pole .

He showed up to our original meeting in a pair of khaki shorts, a green tee shirt and red suspenders. Wavy gray hair and a white beard framed his pleasant face. He said he needed help with his writing and so we began. Soon, he got the gist of it and had a wonderful editor at home in Ms. Claus.

In the next few days I’ll be planning for a family gathering, making sure every detail is taken care of . Santa will venture out in his sleigh to spread Christmas cheer.

To you and yours, I trust that this holiday season is joyful and that your eyes light up with the wonder of these dark nights.

And as Santa might sleigh as he flew off the roof, Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.

She started conversations with this: My love died with him. I wanted to figure out what that meant when I began to seriously write about my parents’ life before me. At various times my mother would launch into a story, a snippet of her memory to tell me something she felt I needed to know about my dad, who died months before I was born.

They were married six short years. My mother was pregnant five times, all after the age of 40. She gave birth to two children before my dad died at the age of 42. At the ripe age of 45 she would tell me that she didn’t remember anything from the time my dad died in January to my birth in May. She would say that my brothers, ages 2 and 4 when he died, were hellions that needed a father’s hand.

It all led back to their origin story, which she faithfully reiterated over the years. A dance floor, a handsome man in a double-breasted suit with a mysterious air about him. That story started in Cincinnati, a convention, and a three week affair. She was 39, called herself a career woman, and lived with her parents. She had just as much fun tellling stories of antics before she met him as she did telling the story of moving to Utah where he lived just two and a half months after they met.

There are swaths of time that her romanticized memories didn’t include. I needed to find them. I had photographs, her stories, the stories of a 1950s culture in the MidWest and the West, but little else, other than questions. And so my journey began.

Questions and Answers

In the early days of serious writing, I came across a list of 100 questions to ask your character. This exercise helped to move into new ways of thinking about my idea of my dad’s character. Basic demographics, physical appearance, personality, love, conflicts, work and education, things they loved, daily life, possessions, spirituality, and values, laid out in my writing.

From there I launched into research about things such as my parents’ wedding day. She recalled a navy blue wool suit, a courthouse in Brigham City, Utah, my dad’s sister and brother as witnesses. Not until I acquired their marriage license did I get a sense that something had gone amiss that day. In dark ink, a line had been drawn through the type of ceremony (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints) and the penned in Civil above it. Not until then did I imagine my mother’s deep concern over a marriage in a religion she did not like or claim as her own.

The more I researched the more my father seemed to walk out of black and white photos with a laugh like the sheer piercing sound of forced air coming out of a balloon. I imagined his profile, the back of his head, the way he walked. What was the tone of his voice? High pitched or rich bass tones. I also found him in my time mucking stalls, tacking horses, and riding through trails that went on forever.

A burning question for me: Why, after three weeks with my dad in Cincinnati, did my mom decide to move to Utah without a marriage proposal. She was thirty-nine, called herself a career woman with a job at Cincinnati Bell. She had fine clothes, a night life of dance and drink, friends, a storied past of lovers from the time she was in high school. Why then did she leave?

Cowboys and Indians, heroes and damsals in distress, images provoked by my mother’s remembrances in my early childhood. They fed the persona of this man, strong and silent. He became as real as my mother’s romantic idea of what their life had been like from the time they met in 1950 until his death in 1957.

As time wore on, the repetitive nature of the narrative became a background to my life. But she’d pull them out on occasions such as the anniversary of his death, January 17 or my birthday, May 20. In my teenage years, she focused her stories on her escapades as a single woman before my dad.

I relied on my mother’s memory to breathe life into what I already embodied. When she died, my father came to life. He no longer lived on the pedastal she’d put him on and the more I searched for him the more I found this beautifully flawed character who loved her, another flawed character.

Writing from family lore, photographs, documents that tell a story within a story, can bring to light the humanness of the people who have become gauzy memories of another time. It is the gift of writing about those who are gone, giving credence to more than just the words, taking the writer into the connectivty between those involved.

In writing other people’s memories, imagine scenes in which those memories took place. Photographs are of utmost importance. The writer can bring a setting to life during the study of faces, hands, bodies bent one way or another, the furnishings, the background. To write the detail of those places that were part of somone’s narrative brings them to life. Then the voices, the conjecture of what the dialogue might have been like becomes part of the writer’s license to fictionalize oral history.

A study of pictures from the time they met until he died showed the diminishing muscle and weakness from a body ravaged by rhuematic fever when he was a child. I stepped into those photos giving breath to him, sensing what he might say and do in terms of aligning with my mother.

Research Time and Place

I made frequent trips to Utah from Cincinnati to figure out who he really was in places he lived and worked. I searched phone books and census records because he’d been single and nomadic, living with brothers and traveling to Alaska. I found his discharge records from the Army three weeks after enlistment noting how I felt his shame over the inability to serve and the stories he made up when his brother returned a decorated war hero.

When I began in earnest to write the story, voices shot through me, places came alive with music and laughter, and dark nights filled with passion became the story of two people with a last chance at finding someone to share their lives with when both felt the hourglass had tipped to running out.

Still I searched for the complete story. They did not go through life alone and the filtering of narratives around their family stories wove through the dynamics of two people forming a family and the distance between the places they knew. For my mother, Cincinnati was home. My dad felt most at home on a Utah mountain. This I am as certain of as the blood that runs through my veins.

My education is in counseling and my writing became a vessel for stories that, at first filled with anger, but then I realized that writing the story, completing it, without harming any individual in the process was the ultimate goal. I needed to complete their beginning, middle, and end without so much as coarse word that my mother might have had about one or the other family member, friend, boss. It became a challenge but in the end has been worth it to expose their humanness and that of those around them as just that, human nature.

In the end, what is this sort of writing? Fiction? Fiction based in truth? Or could the imagination stretch to include this as recounting in full bodied scenes with dialogue the truth of what really happened behind a tone of voice, a memory that never changes but is meted out over the years as the fabric of generations. It could be a Quantum leap.

Recently, someone offered this. Imagine that as the egg inside a woman’s womb, that egg was there before even the woman was conceived, the egg that becomes the child transcends generations. What is absorbed into a womb carrying a child? Trauma, grief, joy, sadness, these experiences that are part of a pregnant woman go deep into the tissue of the uterus and into the placenta, and dare I say, into the child. To begin life with a deep knowing and then to experience it with curiosity can become a valid place for a writer to begin their journey.

Mine began when I ushered my mother out of this world only to discover a deep sense that my parents were together for the first time in my life. It’s where the story begins but not where it ends.

I watched from my window as sparrows flew in and out of the stone foundation near the back door the other day. In short burst their heads disappeared into the mortar between the stones laid more than one hundred years ago. The dusty sand dresses the sidewalk below.

My husband’s voice echoes in my head. “I’ll have to fix that,” he said two years ago, as he built the deck and stairs of a new back porch.

When we bought the house in 2017 an oddly laid out deck led from the back door around the family that had been built in eighties as an add-on. John said that when he got old and decrepit he’d move into that room because they’d also put in a full bath, ADA accessible just off the room. Premonition? Maybe.

But two years ago we had little thought of that as the backporch he built with his little helper-Eloise would serve the new patio that replaced the unusable deck. And even though John had been weakened by on-going treatments for prostate cancer, he and Eloise prepped and built the deck that ultimately became our finished back porch.

Each time he’d walk from the front door to work a bit more on the new porch, he’d look with concern at the debris below that old foundation. A similar problem (sans bird nesting) is in the basement where I sweep debris about once a month. Mice? I don’t know. He never got around to it so it falls on me to figure this out. I’m okay with that. It feels like the right thing to do.

Monty Python and me

In the last year, I’ve walked through our home worrying over things John would do without much effort. Who do I call now? How much will it cost? When is it too much for me? At least once a week some flyer comes in the mail inviting me to an open house at a retirment community. I think of Monty Python and the Holy Grail, a wagon full of bodies and one of the peasants pops his head up and says, “I’m not dead yet.”

I dismiss the thoughts of leaving this house since it feels like a betrayal of our life together and I truly love the place.

So, how to deal with the foundation?

After 117 years, of course it needs a bit of help. the good news is, John’s suggestion-a bag or two of SakCrete and a Saturday appears to be a way to solve the issue. That’s the way we solved most issues with the house, that or calling on people in the industry who could do one-offs, likely calling in favors along the way.

Do the Birds Know Better?

It’s no surprise the birds drew my attention to the wall. They remind me that I’m still useful. Over these last few months I’ve been laying new foundations in both my professional and personal lives.

The time will come when I will have to refer to the after of John’s death as two-, three-, or four-years ago. But for now it is a year ago when I met with my financial planner to talk about a future without John. I could not grasp that possibility then except when it was suggested that I might want to sell this house in five years and buy a condo.

Poor guy didn’t know what to say when I laughed at the possibility. Me in a condo would not work. So here I am seventeen months since John died and wondering about structures. The stone and mortar are a simple fix. It’s the other building blocks that need a closer look.

A Cancer Diagnosis

In September, 2021, I began to tuck away aspects of my professional life in order to pay attention to Mycharts, what food I bought, how I cooked, counting pills and focusing on one thing only: to keep my husband alive. Everything else could wait.

Now, with time on my hands, I’m reviewing things I forgot that I knew, forgot that I did. Working with a business coach I’m reimaging the various aspects of my work: two book-length projects, clients, freelance, workshops, retreats.

For the first time in my life I am not defined as a caretaker. Like that small flock of birds, I’m pecking away at what no longer serves me while looking to 2026 as a year when I own my value.

New Mortar Between Old Stones

Just like sweeping the sandy debris from the sidewalk, I’m using a metaphorical broom on other parts of my life, mixing fresh concrete, patching and protecting a value I still believe that I hold.

So many friends who feel they have something to contribute have expressed concern about being invisible in the business world. Mary Pierce Brosmer of Women Writing for (a) Change, once encouraged me to “take up some space”. Well I’ve done that, not always in the best of light, but none the less taking up space.

As I look to rolling out a new business model, I am energized to work again with people who want to write, want to work with their grief journeys, and people who just want to connect and find ways to move forward in this chaotic world we find ourselves in.

Yes, I am ready once more to take up some space.

Where to aim the dart.

The only voiçe is yours

How close to the board to stand

Throw now? Or wait for someone to tell you when to go.

Silence can be deafening.

You pretend you know what you’re doing

Fake it, right?

And what do you wear to a bar where the dart board has been

As long as you have been adulting.

Black, you can’t go wrong with black.

Will the lights be low?

You don’t want to embarrass yourself.

You catch your reflection in a darkened window.

Wagging wings under your extended arm,

Someday they may be long enough for you to fly.

Saddlebags of sorrow at your hips

You wonder if you will ever feel worthy again.

Never mind, just smile. Give it your best shot

Amid a multitude tiny holes around the dartboard,

the black, red and green pie pieces the target.

Your dart is airborne you wonder where it might land

It falls short of the cork, falls short of the drywall,

Falls to the floor.

You stare at it, twirl and twist the two remaining darts in your hand.

Do you take another chance.

Are you ready?

Are you willing to see this through?

You look over the sea of people. Hoping to find your anchor.

No eyes to lock on,

No eyes to understand the frown on your face,

The tear glistening on your cheek.

Perhaps people are distracted from

This woman who walked into a bar

Who tried to be like the rest of you.

All you want to do is dart out of there.

You muster all the courage you can.

Stay in the moment

Figure your way out or in or around the bullseye in your heart.

You whip out your wallet, buy everyone a drink.

How silly of you.

You turn away from the reflection in the window.

You turn away from the dart on the floor.

The darts in your hand,

The laughter.

You turn away from all of it.

Breathe. Just breathe.

You threw a dart.

It didn’t stick.

Tomorrow there will be other darts, other bars, other people.

Other stories and some of them will be the dart that pierces your heart .

Some will be the dart that pops the balloon and makes everything okay.

My hair had turned black. My eyes had changed from chocolate brown to hazel. On my chest, my one day old boy slept. No more tumbles in my swollen belly at 2:00 a.m. just a sweet baby who wanted nothing more than to snuggle. Love for the unseen had been replaced with a remarkable feeling of wholeness, this boy cradled in my arms. So began my journey as Mom, Oma, Grandma.

When Wayne was 5 years old and he stood at a 50th wedding anniversary, grabbed a mic and started telling jokes. Making people happy, making them laugh, spreading joy has been part of his personality. He had some tough rows to hoe in the last forty years, but there was always a punch line.

Late August

We started our thirty-five days of celebrations with our dear daughter-in-love, Kendall. She is a gentle spirit who adds such kindness to our family. She’s been with Jason so long that I can’t remember a time when Kendall wasn’t a part of our family.

Next is Corey, the youngest child. How can he be thirty-four? He is the baby, like me of my family. We act alike, think alike, and get each other’s humor.

September

Wayne and Courtney celebrate being born on the same day three years apart. I joke with Courtney’s mom that it’s the anniversary of our motherhood as well. Wayne jokes that he’ll never forget her birthday this way.

In One Week’s Time

Three birthdays come in one eight-day, bittersweet period from the 19th through the 26th of September when we mark the births of three grand children: Riley John-one year old, Susannah June (Sunny)-one year old, and Sam, our sweet, strong Sam. How can it be that he is nearly a teen? Oh how John would love to see them grow.

To round out these thirty-five days of birthday celebrations, Corey’s wife, Autumn takes the last day of September. Autumn’s steadfast devotion to Corey remains the reason he can have the career he does. She adds so much to him, thus adding to our family too.

Six of us have birthdays at different times of the year. Yet, we feel the love that we hope centers around this time when we turn ourselves to hope for pumpkin spice lattes, jumping into a pile of leaves, sweaters that help us remember other times, other people, other places.

Next up? Eloise’s singular celebration on Thanksgiving day. And so it goes.

In a recent conversation with a widow who has been at this “living without him” situation longer than me, she told me to expect surprises in the second year. I was drawn to the catalogue in my mind of how I’ve come to be two months into my second year of widowhood.

March 26, 2024 I posted the first of a four-part series on the renovation of our porch, followed by part two on April 5, 2024 and part three on April 19, 2024. I never got around to posting the fourth, given that John had surgery to attempt a thyroidectomy when it was discovered that it was inoperable. We mustered our courage and lived the next six weeks in the best way we knew how.

That brings me to the first of many full circle moments that have happened. The porch had been completed but water pooled in various places on the deck, creating an excellerated rot in the boards. John bemoaned the fact that those bellies needed to be fixed. So much more took precedence after the initial restoration of the porch because with Historic Tax Credits there is a time issue. We were on a tight schedule to get other proposed work completed.

This summer, our contractor came by to assess the damage. I knew it would not be cheap but embodied John’s expertise at negotiation and told this friend/contractor how much I had to spend on the project and where I’d like for the number to be. When the repair was completed we sat on the step and talked about John and about his loss. Each of us missing him in a different way. He explained how he’d not cut corners but became creative with how to implement and work with materials in his shop. He satisfied the work and the bill was well within the parameters I had set.

I was proud of my self for my ability to branch out and ask for what I wanted and needed.

Summer, 2023, John and I sat on our newly finished patio, a product of the tax credit award. We looked to the aging, crabapple tree that we’d been angsting over. The bark peeled, leaves fell in early summer spotted and turning yellow. In my estimation it was dying. But we needed to hang on to the sameness of it’s presence and hope in the symbolic nature of its failing health, encouraging it to recover.

That day, something flitted past my line-of-sight and a swallowtail butterfly perched on a piece of fruit in the tree. Its wings lazed in and out while it drank the nectar. Funny what you see in moments when time is limited. Without warning, a hummingbird dive-bombed the butterfly. A battle ensued. The butterfly swooped out to take cover in the weeping cherry, only to have the humming bird follow in full attack mode. We watched in fascination as the bird finally won out and the butterfly disappeared.

This spring there was hope that it might survive, full of blossoms, but soon it lost many leaves, full of fungus. It had served its purpose. Now a stronger tree would have to be put in its place. A few weeks ago an urban lumberjack made quick work of limb-by-limb decapitation. My mind went to John’s ultimate gift of donating his body to the Body Donation program at the University of Cincinnati. Morbid, I know. But the fact is, throughout the last year, I could pretend that he was still alive, still doing good, still teaching knowing that the call had not come to pick up his cremains.

The tree is gone. A selection for fall planting has been made: yellow wood, a Kentucky native like me. And just last week, I was notified that John’s cremains were ready for pick up. Joni Mitchell’s voice plays in my head: And the seasons, they go round and round…

John’s spirit continues to make his presence known. I’ve mentioned his penchant for flipping pitcures off the wall. I took the dogs away for Independence Day weekend and upon my return a picture of our youngest son when he was a child laying in the middle of the foyer. It’s an 8x10 in a beautiful wood frame and not a mark on it, the glass still in tact. Corey was going through such a difficult time just before this happened.

At 2:30 a.m. on the morning before I received the letter from U.C. another photo bounced down the steps, one of the three older boys. Yes, John, I will check in with them. They have been so strong for me. I owe them and you the same courtesy. All of the kids have been such strong versions of John.

The container sits on the table by the window with an unfinishe puzzle (one that John had started), a “Papa Bag” that Eloise created with particular things in it that remind her of him, a Sudoku book, half-finished, and a pair of readering glasses he left behind.

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I drove a tree-lined, sun-dappled lane to Camp Whippoorwill looking for signs of the project that our family funded with donations that came in last year after John’s death. Not knowing what to expect, I stopped by a saw horse table littered with tools. Three women in flourescent green tee shirts and green hard hats circled the table. A young man poked his head out above a gabled roof of a small building by a lake. Canoes stood at attention near the water’s edge.

I approached them with the casualness of someone who knows construction sites and said, “I see women in hard hats and figure you must know where I need to go.” I explained that I was there to volunteer with a project by Allied Construction Industries called She Builds. They pointed me down a ways on the gravel road to the project headquarters.

And so the day began, a day to celebrate my husband’s legacy of giving women the advantage to build careers in construction if they so choose. Throughout the day, I would learn just how much the girls had already been exposed to, from electrical work to scaffolding, to carpentry, to bridge-building.

Walsh Kokosing, the contractors for the Brent Spence Bridge project, spent three days with the girls teaching them about the intracacies of suspension, decking, girders and truly the nuts and bolts of constructing a bridge. A few years back, John was involved in a project to teach skills to middle schoolers. He developed a plan to use pennies to build bridges, nervous as to how he would explain the project to them. When it was over, he called to tell me it had been a success. I think popsicle sticks might have been easier, but John Neyer loved a challenge.

The people I met at the approach to the campsite were employees of Messer Construction. Their expertise shone through as they gave their time to expose the girls to building a structure like the boat house. I spoke with Kim Green from Messer who remembered a couple of project managers that I knew when John and I owned Neyer Construction, Inc. I admired those women back then. They headed up large projects around Greater Cincinnati, held numbers and formulas in their heads, followed plans that make little sense to the untrained eye. They were strong and capable like we hope the young girls at camp will be as they choose a field of study.

Hard hats, safety glasses, gloves, clean worksite, proper use of tools. The campers worked for more than an hour on developing a skit for the ending ceremony. With my counterpart from A.C.I., we helped them integrate construction safety, time management, job performance and earning a salary. Heavy stuff for young teens but most important if they want to pursue jobs in the field.

The real fun came when they showed us how to put a toilet together. Here, I jumped

in to stablize the tank while they secured it to the base. The confidence that shone through in them made the heat, the flies, and exhaustion all worth it.

As parents arrived to pick up the campers, one girl waited anxiously. I’d had a conversation with her earlier. She said she wants to become a carpenter. As she danced from foot to foot, looking to the gravel entry, she slumped on the curb and devolved into tears. A mother’s inclination is to jump in and fix the situation, but I didn’t. Three girls approached her, surrounded her, hugging the teary-eyed girl. She recovered and stood up, still looking to the road, but now, fueled by the strength of the other girls who comforted her. Soon her parents showed up and she jumped into the car with them.

John’s spirit hinted at the corners of every activity for the week-long She Builds program. Always the teacher, he would be so proud of the work Allied Construction Industries is continuing in his name. And yet, the power of women and girls circling one another in a time when they needed help, comfort, a hammer, a wrench, a hard hat, shone through in the Girl Scouts who chose to be exposed to construction opportunities during the week.