Earth Experiences #17: A Wife, A Mother, A Wanted Daughter

When life and memoir collide

Mom and Dad: Newlyweds. When life promised them everything.

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Two days ago, I received an exceptionally exciting email. It was the publication schedule for my memoir, HURRICANE LESSONS, which is coming out in Spring 2026.

With my new job, life has been moving so quickly lately that I hadn’t thought much about my memoir at all. But there it was, in black and white, all the tasks that have to be completed before my next book baby is born.

Memoir is an interesting beast. You choose a moment in your life to write about, to expound upon, to find meaning in, and you share it with the rest of the world so they, too, can find connection and maybe even a little bit of hope.

But for the memoirist, life continues on. That snippet of time that you wrote about will always be a part of your story, but it grows smaller in your rearview mirror as you continue the journey.

You move forward, your characters move on, and new stories are being written in your mind every day.

But one piece of my life will remain at the forefront of my mind forever, and that’s the tale of my dad and my desire to have him in my life. No matter how old I grow, his absence will always be an unfillable hole in my heart.

I still don’t know if he’s passed into the whatever comes next, but I’m grateful I got the chance to say a final goodbye.

Rest easy, Dad. It’s been a long, hard road for us.

~ ~ ~

Excerpt from HURRICANE LESSONS, coming from Sibylline Press, April 2026

One Christmas morning, when I was seven and still waiting to hear Santa’s sleigh on our apartment roof, Dad arrived with rainbow striped bags stuffed full of Life Savers and Bubble Yum. I was careful around him, and a bit shy. I didn’t want to scare him away with my loud voice and my aggressive freckles and my barrage of questions. Where have you been? What did you do there without us? How long are you staying? Why did you go? What can I do to make you stay?

I vividly recall how he wrapped me up in his arms on our worn couch while we watched TV that night. I breathed in the scent of his Old Spice and his Scotch so it would stay with me, deep in my lungs, because I knew he wouldn’t. I wanted to tell him about my playground basketball team, about riding my bike to play baseball at the Boys Club. I wanted to tell him how I was the only girl on the boys’ team. Wanted him to know how good I was. But what he really wanted to do was talk about himself, his dreams, his grand plans. So I listened. And I breathed him in some more. He talked about a faraway land called California and pairs of Aces and balmy, palm tree sunsets. As I was nodding off to sleep, Mom took me from his arms to tuck me into bed. And I held on a little longer, not wanting to let go. I said, Please stay. But I only said it in my head, not with my voice.

Because I knew he wouldn’t.

It became the mantra of my life.

Please stay. Please stay. Please stay.

Decades later, when one-by-one my own children were pulled from my belly, wet and wide-eyed and slippery, this was a reality I could not reconcile: the choosing not to stay. The leaving. The decision to bring a child into the world and then to walk away. It was a life I could not slip into; it was a hand-me-down dress that did not fit.

That long-ago Christmas night when my wild red curls were still unkempt and my freckles had not yet faded, I woke in the wee hours, reached under my bed, and pulled out the colorful bag Dad had brought me. I saw up against my pillows, careful not to wake Carrie sleeping a few feet away, and I unwrapped piece after piece of grape Bubble Yum. I shoved it all into my mouth, chewing and salivating until I could hardly move my jaws. I let the purple spit run down my throat and down my chin as I savored the sugary, artificial grape flavor. Anything grape still reminds me of my dad and what I then understood to be a father’s love—unexpected gifts of gum and candy and a few hours together in front of the TV.

Every time Dad left, he took all my oxygen with him. It was these little abandonments, these pockets of disappointment that pierced my heart again and again until it was left holey and damaged and incomplete. As I grew, my need for him was as big as my mother’s stomach wound, as pink and raw as her early scar.

She wanted nothing more than to be a wife and mother.

I wanted nothing more than to be a wanted daughter.