So once again, I’m facing a challenge: caring for a loved one with a serious medical condition. Unfortunately, he’s suffered many setbacks since then and remains at risk of developing an infection or succumbing to organ rejection. The only cure is a lung transplant-and, miraculously, he was able to get one. A few years ago, Clint was diagnosed with pulmonary fibrosis, a terminal lung disease. (I’m not sure such a thing even exists.) Life has thrown me a new curve ball. Sound like a happily-ever-after ending? It isn’t really. The cherry on top of everything: after all those years of not dating, I have a wonderful fiancé named Clint. More excitingly, I’m now a traditionally published author of two books: a young adult paranormal novel, The Haunted Purse, and a middle-grade mystery novel, Mall Girl Meets the Shadow Vandal. And although I’ll probably never know the area as well as I know my hometown, I manage to get to all the important places. I still have the great job that brought me here in the first place. My new locale isn’t so new and scary anymore. I’d lie in bed at night pining for my beloved old house, my good friends, the life I’d left behind. I was constantly getting lost on the unfamiliar roads. But after I moved, I was alone in a strange city, working with people I didn’t know. I knew the area so well, I could have driven the roads blindfolded. My parents and sister lived minutes away. In my hometown, I’d had a support system consisting of friends, relatives, coworkers, and neighbors. That second upheaval was almost as hard to deal with as the first.
The only problem: it was two hundred miles away-and that meant I had to leave the town I’d lived in my whole life. After applying for dozens of jobs, I finally snagged the perfect one. As a result, I was out of work for six months. The organization I was working for shut its doors for good. I graduated from college and got a good job as an editor. The kids grew up and, miraculously, turned out okay.
My family’s journey wasn’t easy, but we made it.
I didn’t date, because it didn’t seem fair to make the kids share their only parent with someone new. My focus in life narrowed to raising the kids and putting myself through college. At the time, I had only a high school education. In the blink of an eye, I became a widow with three young children to support. Then the unthinkable happened: Richard died of a sudden, first-time heart attack. Long ago, I was a young stay-at-home mom living a comfortable domestic life with my husband, Richard, and our three children, ages six eight, and twelve. Reinvention has been forced upon me by fate-time and time again. Joanne, thanks so much for inviting me here today. Today, we have Wild Rose Press author Kimberly Baer sharing her inspiring reinvention story and her novels, The Haunted Purse and Mall Girls Meet the Shadow Vandal.
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