I’d like to introduce you to Janna who blogs at All We Need Is Love…. Janna is writing a memoir and I’ve found some of her posts, including this one, fascinating and well written. Please visit her and read some of her work.
Category: Family Relationships
As Thanksgiving approached, our family plans were somewhat up in the air. Our son’s family consists of some adult children who have a million directions to head in on any holiday. Plus we have one family member that won’t show up if others are going to be in attendance. Too much hinges on that one individual. But not our call.
So I started out Thanksgiving Day in gratitude for a scheduled lunch out with our son, Craig, and his wife, Gigi, at a local seafood restaurant. Before you gasp, they were also serving a traditional turkey dinner. Three of us ate seafood while our son couldn’t resist stuffing and mashed potatoes. It was all beautifully prepared, and we enjoyed a quiet foursome catching up on several weeks of work changes, health issues, and what was going to happen on Friday.
The day after Thanksgiving, more commonly known as Black Friday and not a day celebrated by our family, was originally going to be the day our family would come together at our son’s home IF we knew what that one individual was going to do. On Thursday evening, we learned she wasn’t coming meaning the rest of us could make our appearance without fear of a haranguing in the middle of dinner.
Craig’s wife, Gigi, and her daughter prepared a turkey, a ham, stuffing, sweet potato casserole, mashed potatoes and gravy, corn, hot rolls, appetizers, and desserts. I added to my gratitude list that I was two days into Thanksgiving celebrations and still hadn’t cooked a single item. Score for Mom!
When we arrived we were greeted by hugs from our three great grandkids, one of whom we seldom see because of…you’ve probably guessed who and/or why.
Although she doesn’t know us well, three-year old Parker realized her cousins, Kylie (9) and Everett aka Buddy (6), were wrapping arms around us.
Obviously, this clued Parker in to the fact we were safe and loving. She too joined in sharing hugs! Our hearts soared with this welcome. My gratitude list was growing.
When it was time to eat, there we were…my husband Bob and me, son Craig and his wife Gigi, Gigi’s daughter Alyssa and her son Tyler, and those adorable great grands. How could anyone top this on your gratitude list?
Well, we could top it only if we’d had our daughter Suzanne (living in South Carolina) and her son Kory and her brother Steve, his wife Amy, and grandson Mikey with us. The table would have been complete. But not all things are possible.
Everyone ate their fill, and Alyssa’s delicious pumpkin cake had to wait until later. Leftovers were packaged up for all to carry home, and I’ve still not cooked a meal since last Tuesday! Cover that with gratitude too.
What did you experience over the days of Thanksgiving that brought gratitude to the forefront of your celebrations? Share below, won’t you?
Synopsis:
What if you woke up one day, living with a family member who had changed into an entirely different person? What if she were an older sibling you had always admired and strived to be like? And what if you were an insecure preteen when it all started? What would that do to your life?
Martha Graham-Waldon’s memoir entitled, Nothing Like Normal: Surviving a Sibling’s Schizophrenia, chronicles the trajectory of her sister’s thirty-year battle with schizophrenia. Two years younger, the author watched her beloved sister descend into madness, nearly pulling the author down with her into a shadowy and baffling black hole of despair.
Book Details:
Nothing Like Normal: Surviving a Sibling’s Schizophrenia by Martha Graham-Waldon Published by Black Opal Books (November 14, 2015)
Genre: Memoir/Family Relationships/Mental Health
Source: Author
Format: Kindle, 278 pages
ASIN: B017H5E5S8
FCC Disclosure: Thank you to the author for providing a copy of this book.
Available here:
AMAZON | BARNES & NOBLE | INDIEBOUND
Review of Nothing Like Normal
In her memoir, Nothing Like Normal: Surviving a Sibling’s Schizophrenia, Martha Graham-Waldon shares the story of her family dealing with an insidious mental health issue. The author was a younger sister who had shared her world with her sister, and then watches her sister’s long battle with schizophrenia. Life changes for both in drastic and intense ways.
Graham-Waldon allows her reader to share in the most intimate of scenes the deterioration of the relationship with her sister and the impact not only on the family, but the greatest struggles clear in the author’s life.
With eloquence and artistry, the author takes us on a journey most of us have not experienced. Or perhaps in our family, the journey has been held secret. In either way, we come away from reading Nothing Like Normal with a birds’ eye view of what a life lived in the midst of the downward spiraling of a victim of schizophrenic experiences, all the while impacting the relationships once held dear.
As a reader and writer of memoir, I appreciated Graham-Waldon’s honesty in her writing of Nothing Like Normal. Writing the truth in a story with such traumatic experiences is not easy. The author accomplishes this well.
I highly recommend this book to those confronting the experience of living with or caring for a family member with mental health issues, specifically schizophrenia. The author’s insights in living with and growing up faced with the dramatic and hurtful changes in her familial relationships are revealing and first-hand.
Meet Martha Graham-Waldon
I am a writer, spiritual entrepreneur and armchair activist who happily resides in the Santa Cruz Mountains of California with my family and a menagerie of pets. My articles have been published locally, internationally and online. I am a winner of the Women’s Memoirs contest for a vignette from my memoir in the eBook Tales of Our Lives. A member of the National Association of Memoir Writers, I love travel, the outdoors, Jazzercise and music. My debut book, the memoir Nothing Like Normal—Surviving a Sibling’s Schizophrenia was published by Black Opal Books on November 14, 2015.
Connect with Martha:
Website | Goodreads | Facebook
