It's been awhile since I posted and with good reason... there have been many changes of late both good and very, very bad.
"All things happen for a reason" has been my motto and I can see the benefit of it now. I really wasn't to clear on it before, it was just something I felt would eventually make sense - losing my job and being home these last several months unable to find another job - these were things that weren't making sense. They were making stress. However I kept thinking, there must be a reason. And there was - I was meant to be home.
My Mom passed in later April, not two years since my father's passing. Life will never be the same again.
It was one thing to live without Dad. He had been very sick and when he passed you knew it was a good thing - there would be no more suffering. My Mom, as always, was there to make sure all was right and looked after. Mom was strong, despite having cancer herself. She was living with it and doing well.
Unfortunately, just when we thought Mom was going to have some time to enjoy life we learned that there was another path she had to take. The battle was on and she fought hard to stay here. In the end, as with my Dad, there was relief to know that there would be no more pain.
Her journey, one her family took with her, was over. She carried on without us... until we meet again.
Despite the darkness of the last few months, there have still been a few drops of sunshine falling in through the cracks acting as a reminder that again, all things happen for a reason.
Change is inevitable and we must carry on.
To that end, I have been writing again. My plans for my own business are coming together.
Below is a teaser for something I am working on. It will be the only teaser I post to my blog, the rest I will work on in private, with an editor and some very wonderful friends :) In the end... there will be a book - no wait, a novel :) I am over the moon for that!
Please feel free to let me know what you think.
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| Mom & Dad |
Happy Father's Dad - where ever you are. This is for you.
(***Oh yes... if you encounter an error of spelling or grammar. Don't worry, it will be fixed***)
***
In the Hollow of his Hands (c)
By: Tara Shannon
Intro:
Every night for the last
fifteen years, Bree Kennedy dreamt the same dream. A blue eyed man would stare
deeply into her eyes. It was as if he knew her every inch - her every thought.
She couldn’t make out anything else about the man except for his piercing blue
eyes. They were so familiar yet she couldn’t place who they belonged to.
Without a doubt though, she knew that she loved the man who owned those eyes.
Heart and soul she loved him.
Bree could feel his embrace,
his arms strong around her as he began to kiss her. His kisses fell softly on
her lips and she became lost in the moment. She wished she could stay in this
part of the dream, she loved this part. It was the next part, the part that
would soon come, that she feared.
Every night it was the same.
Bree’s blue eyed love would let go his embrace and begin to walk away from her.
Try as she might, she could never make him stop and turn back around. He stayed
one step ahead of her at every turn, always just out of reach. In a whisper she
would hear him say “goodbye”, his silhouette fading out into a bright glaring
light. His soft voice replaced by the sound of someone screaming, the screech
of tires on pavement and a horn blaring loudly. Pure fear would wash over her;
the dream was now a nightmare.
Bree would wake to a scream.
It was her own. It would escape her lips and steal her breath before falling
flat against the darkness of the night. She was awake now and frightened.
Gripping her blankets tight around her Bree would listen to the only sound in
the room - the pounding of her broken heart.
Chapter 1:
“Mom? Are you there?” Bree
Kennedy called out to the darkness of her bedroom.
There was no response, except
for a confused and disgruntled meow from Marzbarz, Bree’s constant feline
companion.
“I thank you for you deep
concern.” Bree whispered sarcastically to the cat as she shimmied out of her
bed. Marz curled himself into a ball, contented once again to fall asleep
amongst the pillows and feather duvet covering the bed. Rolling her eyes and
wishing to be able to trade places with her pet, Bree made her way down the
hall to the kitchen.
When Bree was a little girl
it was her father who would always put the kettle on. He would swear that a
good cup of tea could cure anything from nightmares to heartache, the common
cold and everything in between. He was right, a good cup of tea usually did the
trick. It could cure anything, if he made it. And, that in itself was the
problem. He wasn’t there and Bree was on her own to cure what ailed her. She
made a good cup of tea, but it was never quite the same as what her Dad would
make. She hoped one day she would get the knack of it but deep down she knew
she never would. The true magic to her Dad’s cure-all cuppa came not from the
tea, its time steeping in the pot or just the right amount of milk added to the
cup – that wasn’t it at all – it was the man himself who held the magic. It was
his care, his kind words and his joking nature that would turn any problem no
matter how small, or large for that matter, into a ray of sunshine. All became
right in the world with one of her Dad’s brews.
Bree sat and pondered her tea
before she took her first sip. She imagined her Dad stirring in the milk and
placing the steaming cup before her at the kitchen table of her childhood home.
Home - that was a thought! It was thousands of miles away. She thought of her
father there at that moment, with her mom at his side. Maybe she could call the
house and they would answer. Bree reached for the phone, then realised how
ridiculous she was being. They weren’t there anymore and they would never again
answer her call.
Bree’s parents existed only
in her memory - and in her overactive imagination. She often felt that she
could still sense them, sometimes even catch a glimpse of them from the corner
of her eye. She convinced herself that this was nothing more than a cruel trick
of her mind. Regardless, she never stopped looking.
How she hated life without
her parents in it. When they died in a car accident, of which Bree was a part,
they left a hole so large in her heart that she feared it would never heal.
Wounded or not, Bree had to carry on. What was done was done. Eventually, she
hoped, she would feel normal again. Fifteen years had passed since the
accident. A new sense of normalcy had yet to set in.
Bree was losing hope and
sadly her heartache became the one constant thing she could count on. It became
normal, weirdly comforting in a way, for her to hurt, to feel sad and to never
expect much from life. Bree became so complacent with things going poorly that
she allowed people to walk all over her. Her relationships with men were a
disaster, her relationship with her aunt who raised her following her parent’s
death was even worse - and work! She could barely hold on to a job for more
than a month. She bore the mark of someone who could be walked on and
ridiculed. After a while she would eventually have enough and explode in anger,
running away to find solace or off to find a new job. Through it all Bree
pushed forward giving the illusion that she didn’t care how terribly she was
being treated - how terribly she let herself be treated. Whatever the case,
underneath her mostly emotionless exterior, she did care and she cared deeply.
Bree was a bit of a masochist. She felt that she deserved to feel terrible and
to be treated as such. That’s how she felt everyday since her parents had died.
Why should she ever expect to feel any different? Besides, to feel happy would
mean that Bree was moving on and moving away from her parents and their
collective tragedy. She couldn’t allow herself to do that, it wasn’t fair. Her
parents couldn’t move beyond the accident, why should she?
Bree felt helpless and
hopeless. She was helpless at the loss of her parent’s and hopeless because she
could not remember a thing about the accident that took their lives, even
though she had been there. The injury Bree sustained as a result of the
accident caused her to lose all memory of the incident and the year that
preceded it. Bree knew that fifteen years ago she had parents, wonderful
parents and then in a flash, they were gone. She was alone. Bree woke to her
Aunt Reed packing her bags and flying her to Canada during the cold of February.
Bree soon came to see an ironic relationship between the Aunt who took her in
and the country that she began to half-heartedly call home - They were both
cold.
Bree stared into her cup of
tea, struggling to hold back tears. She despised her Aunt and she missed her
parents. She hated most of all, not remembering that last year with her
parents. What had happened in that year? What was said? Did her parents know
how much she loved them before they died? Did they know how much she missed
them now? Bree felt that if she could retrieve those lost memories, she could
gain back that stolen time with her parents. The hole in her heart might fill
and she could gain some closure, maybe even some peace.
She was certain that her
recurring dream about the blue eyed man was connected in some way to her
missing memories, but she couldn’t for the life of her figure out how. Bree
also knew that the last nightmarish part of her dream was a glimpse into the
crash that stole so much from her. While she didn’t want to know anymore about
the crash, she knew she would someday have to relive it if she were to regain
her missing year. For years Bree had hoped that her memory would just return
out of the blue, no therapy or prompting required. Then as a result her
recurring nightmare would end and be replaced by something beautiful – perhaps
a dream of her parents enjoying a warm summers day. As the years ticked by,
Bree realised that the miraculous return of her memory and the disappearance of
her recurring nightmare would never happen. At least, not without some help. If
she wanted her memories back, she would have to confront her nightmare head on.
The only way she felt she could do that would be by returning home - to Ireland. Surely
her memories would be there waiting for her. She could feel them calling to
her, pulling at her heart and mind. Every time she dreamt her dreaded dream she
woke to the need to go home but time and time again she would resist. She would
tell herself that she needn’t return, it wasn’t necessary and she could find
the truth of her past right where she was. Bree was afraid. She was afraid of
what she might find and of what she might learn. The thought of leaving her
dismal life in Canada to
find what might be an even more dismal one in Ireland chilled her to the bone.
Tonight though, things were
different. As Bree sat at her kitchen table sipping her tea and hoping her
problems would magically solve themselves, she realised that she had the
solution. She’d had it all along. The answer to her problems was within her,
only she could put an end to her constant nightmares. Only she could track down
the pieces of her missing year. Enough was enough. Bree knew she could no
longer resist the strange pull calling her home.
In one decisive move Bree
went online and booked a ticket to Ireland. The plane would leave
first thing in the morning. With no turning back she swiftly packed her bags,
slipped her sleepy cat into his travel carrier and tiptoed out the door. Her
fiancé, who lay sleeping on the sofa in the living room in front of the TV, was
none the wiser. Bree’s days of living in the dark were over. Good or bad, her
life was about to change. She stepped out onto the street and hailed a cab. A
cool spring breeze played across her cheek and a smile formed on her lips. She
was determined like never before to take charge of her life and to find what
she had lost.
