Peggy Jaeger's Blog

Resurgence…

I’ve mentioned this here before, but I’ve used this blog to try and help me resolve my grief over my mother’s death in 2023. I’ve written many posts dedicated to how I was coping – if I was coping – things I had to learn to do as a 60+ woman, and how I was trudging through the quagmire of her sudden passing. I’ve been collecting these posts in a file on my desktop with the hope to compile them into a book on grieving. Along the way I began recording what was going on with Jack, as well.

The last entry in that book was on Mother’s day of this year. I simply haven’t been able to write anything else. No desire, no willingness, nothing to say has filled me with angst. I wanted to complete the book before Mother’s day of this year, but found I…simply couldn’t. And I couldn’t figure out why I was unable to put a period on the two saddest years of my life.

Until last Monday when Jack died.

Since then, the words have been pouring out of me like a morning rainfall in the tropics.

It hit me today why I haven’t been able to finish that book: with Jack still alive, my mother’s story wasn’t over yet.

Simple right? You’d think that I, as someone so attuned to her thoughts and emotions would have seen that.

But I didn’t.

The day he passed, I had this sudden urge – almost like an obsession – to finish that book.

I realized with Jack still alive, struggling, and missing my mother, her story wasn’t ready to be completed. Now that he is in Heaven with her, I can put a period on a a life – two actually, – that were filled with struggles, hardship, loss, and ultimately, love.

I’ll keep you all updated on the progress, but I’m thinking if my mind and fingers keep up at this pace, that book will be out in the reading wild by Mother’s day 2026 as a tribute to two people who completed one another.

~ Peg

A sad life…

It’s a terrible thing to realize that you’ve known someone for almost 59 of your 65 years, lived with them for most of your childhood and young adult life, and know practically nothing about them. This is the situation between me and my stepfather, Jack.

He came into my mother’s life in 1965 when I was barely 5. Because his second divorce hadn’t finalized yet, they lived together in what was called “sin” back then (by both their families) for 1 year. I always thought their wedding anniversary was 12.11.65. It wasn’t. Add a full year and that’s when it really was.

I’ll admit, as a child I didn’t take the time to get to know Jack. I was a kid after all, didn’t have the mental wherewithal to analyze the situation, and was used to life being just me and Mommy. Then one day, this skinny guy with a big nose moved in and changed the dynamic. Of course, at the time, I didn’t realize that’s what he’d done. I just knew things were different now and I had to sleep on a couch instead of in my mom’s bed. The resentment for him being in our lives started right then and there and continued for all my childhood, through college, and even when I got married. But that’s jumping the gun on the story I want to tell, so let me slow down.

Jack was an odd man. I know now he was plagued by so much mental angst and depression, but when I was a kid all I knew was that he rarely smiled and he yelled a lot. A lot.

And at my mother.

She yelled right back. I’ve written before that my mother was the kind of fighter that if you went low, she went down to the earth’s crust in retaliation. That’s the way they fought during the entire 50+ years of their marriage. Dirty, mean, and nasty. And neither knew how to apologize. Nor did they ever, verbally, do so.

There are so many memories I have of Jack screaming, “I’m packing my bags,” and my mother replying, “Go on and run back to your shitty family who think you’re a joke.”

See? Earth’s crust for sure.

Not all the memories I have are like this. There was more good than bad at times. Because we had no money left over after the bills were paid, we never traveled or did things other families did like go to Disneyworld. We did the stuff that was free. Did you know there are more than 100 museums in NYC alone? When I was a kid, most if not all of them had free admission, so we’d take the trains and buses and the ferry from Staten Island and go into the city and visit them. Back then the Ferry cost 0.5 cents and the train was a quarter. We could go anywhere for less than a few bucks in travel expenses.

The Brooklyn Botanical gardens was a favorite, too.

The bad times, though, when they occurred, were really bad. Jack’s family hated my mother and me – no lie or exaggeration. Two of his brothers told her to her face, with me watching, that she was the worst thing that ever happened to their little brother. Since one of his 4 brothers was “connected” I grew up worrying that they’d find our bodies in the bottom of a ravine one day.

My psychotic grandmother hated Jack because he was Italian. Racism ran long and hard in her, and I have too many memories of the disgusting things she called people who weren’t just like her, especially when she was drunk.

Jacks’ depression took a huge turn for the worse when I was about 10. I don’t know the details- my parents never spoke to me about anything, even when I got older – but I remember he did something at work that the bosses were considering firing him for. It resolved, but I think Jack was demoted. A crushing blow for a man who already had a fragile ego. The fights after this time were more frequent.

Even though he threatened to leave my mother time and time again, he never did.

Misery loves company, right?

There was a time his weight skyrocketed to 250 pounds because all he ever did was eat, and he was diagnosed with kidney disease and high blood pressure. I wasn’t a nurse then, but even I knew screaming at the top of your lungs couldn’t be good for your blood pressure.

I actually caught him with an opened, one pound bag of M&Ms in the grocery store one night when he volunteered to shop for my mother. He ate about half of it and then put the remainder back on the shelf, still opened. I was so embarrassed someone had seen him do it and worried he’d be arrested. With age, wisdom, and a psych degree, I now know his eating disorder was a symptom of his depression. He ate because it gave him a sensation of pleasure – something he wasn’t getting a great deal of in his life. And he snuck the food because he was, subconsciously, ashamed he was doing it and knew if my mother caught him there would have been a huge blowout.

It’s amazing to me the amount of wisdom I have about his behavior now that I wish I could have had back then.

Jack didn’t smoke; didn’t drink. He had no friends – guy or girl – and his family looked down their noses on him because of his three marriages and the fact he never went to college. Only one of them did, so I could never understand why this was such a horrible thing for them to think of their youngest brother.

I never even knew he’d been married twice before until he was in the nursing home and by then 85 years old. He never spoke of it, and neither did my mother. He had no children from any of his marriages. His entire adult life was going to work each day, sleeping in on the weekends, and going for walks with my mother as they got older. I never knew what he’d wished his life would be like when he was younger. I never knew the root cause of his lifelong depression. I can guess, but that’s all it would be: a guess.

I never knew why he married and divorced those two other times, but stayed committed to my mother even though they fought so much. I don’t know why he didn’t learn to drive, something everyone in his generation learned. Well, except for my mother. I don’t know his favorite movie, book, teenage crush. I don’t know where he went to school, why he opted out of college when it was offered to him by his parents. I have no idea why his family disliked him so and yet hated that he was with my mother. It makes no sense. I have no idea why he had no friends. Again, I can guess, based on both his and my mother’s behavior when anyone new came into their lives, but it would still be just a guess.

I do know he was a simple, very private man who didn’t ask for anything in life other than to be taken care of. I do know he loved cats ( we had several when I was growing up), going for walks, and watching old western movies on TNT. He loved Hershey bars and Coke.

I never saw him without a button down collared shirt the entire time I was growing up. In fact, I’d never seen him in an undershirt until he was admitted to the nursing home. That’s the kind of man he was: private.

I have vivid memories of him helping me with my math homework when I was in third grade and just not understanding long division and fractions. He was patient, kind, and guided me in ways to help solve the problems by myself. I have vivid memories of how sweet and loving he was with every single one of our cats. They used to sleep on his chest and he never wanted to roll over in bed because they were so comfortable.

When I was getting married I’d elected to walk myself down the aisle because I wouldn’t choose between Jack and my birth father. My mother, naturally, was pissed I hadn’t chosen Jack. Jack wasn’t mad at all. He even said if I wanted my father to do the honors, it was okay with him. In all honesty, if I could have done so without causing a family war, I would have chosen Jack. He had more interaction with me growing up than my real father did. But if I’d done that I can only imagine the carnage I would have suffered through. The Red Wedding comes to mind.

Lost opportunities are so sad, aren’t they.

Today I meet with the funeral director to finalize Jack’s cremation plans. He wanted no service, no mass. There’s no one to grieve except for me, anyway.

Which I’m doing.

When I get his cremains back, I’m going to join them with my mother’s. Then they will be together in Heaven and on earth again.

~Peg

Jack…

So it’s been 24 hrs and I can process things a bit more, and am able to write down everything that’s been happening in Jack’s life during the past 2 weeks to give everyone some clarity. I haven’t talked about this – or written about it – because I’ve been living, daily, with his rapid decline. Everything in my life went secondary for the past 14 days.

Now, with him joining with my mother, I can get it all down.

What started as flank pain, a fever of 103.5, and a bout of vomiting, landed Jack in the local hospital two weekends ago. I got a call from the nursing home at about six that friday night saying they were transporting him over.

I called the ER and spoke with the PA and the doctor on call who both told me that Jack had an antibiotic resistant UTI, ( I already knew this) and they’d done a cat scan and he had a blockage in the only kidney that worked on him – his left – and that they weren’t equipped to take care it so they were going to ship him out to another hospital. I asked that they not do that because the last time they shipped him to Connecticut and I had to drive 6 hours every day to make sure he was being cared for. I said it was unfair to do that to him and me, since I live in New Hampshire. The doc said, “Let me see what i can do.”

That was at 9 pm. I never heard anything again and finally decided to call at 4 am for an update.

The nurse on duty told me my stepfather had been transferred to Dartmouth in Lebanon at midnight and was surprised I hadn’t been called.

She may have been surprised, but I was supremely pissed. Supremely. I filed that little tidbit away along with my anger.

I called up to Lebanon and spoke with the ER doc who told me they were sending Jack for a urology consult in the morning but that he was admitted, they were giving him pain meds, and I could see him when I arrived, which I did at 9 am Saturday morning.

The urology people never arrived until after 4, which, by then I was long gone.

When the urologist called me, he gave me three options for Jack. Two required surgery and probably would do nothing more than give him a postop infection and a great deal of more pain. My thought was that he’d suffered enough. I opted for door number three: do nothing and let him go back to the nursing home. The urologist agreed. Jack was an 86 year old, demented man with one kidney that was failing. If it did and they were going to treat it, he was looking at dialysis.

There was no way on earth, in hell, or heaven above, I was going to let that happen.

He was classified as “Comfort care” from that moment on by the hospital.

Let me tell you, the hospital’s definition of comfort care: put the patient in a private room and basically forget about him. Which is what they did.

And I’m not exaggerating.

I went up on Sunday morning to see him. He was in a private room sitting at a weird angle in bed. He didn’t know how to right himself because he couldn’t reach the bed controls and didn’t know when anyone had last come in to see him, meaning staff. I got him repositioned and asked if he knew what he had for breakfast.

He didn’t. Then he said, “I’m so hungry. I don’t think I got breakfast.” When his stomach growled, audibly, I knew he hadn’t. One thing about Jack, no matter how lousy he felt, he always – always – ate.

I went out to the desk to speak to his nurse. I was told Jack had been moved because, as comfort care, he was getting the basic treatment they could give.

Their definition of basic, to my eyes was this: Jack was admitted there Friday night. It was now 12 on Sunday. He was wearing the same undershirt he’d been wearing when they transferred him from the nursing home -hadn’t even given him a hospital issue gown – no socks, no pants. He hadn’t been shaved and from the smell of him, not washed either. He’d been put in a room and forgotten. He wasn’t getting any care, wasn’t given any meds, and didn’t know what was going on.

Now, I could have complained. Wanted to, badly. But that would have only hurt Jack. So I did what my mother made me promise I would do and advocated for him. I called the nursing home from his hospital room and spoke to the head nurse on his unit ( an absolute doll of a woman) and the social worker-admittance girl for the home ( another peach of a person) and told them what was going on. They immediately set up a dialogue with the social worker in the hospital and got orders to transfer him back to Vermont. Since it was Sunday, this wasn’t going to happen until Monday morning. Okay, I got that. The wheels of progress on the weekends move slowly. I stayed with Jack for most of the day, made him as comfortable as I could, fed him his lunch when it arrived, and then left when he fell asleep.

He was transferred back to the nursing home by noon the next day and he was so happy to be “home.”

I went to see him the next day. He was very tired -more so than I’d ever seen him, but the staff had gotten him up in the wheelchair washed, dressed and looking good.

For the next week he was tired, twice when I went to visit him he wasn;t out of bed, telling the staff he just wanted to laze around. At 86, I couldn’t blame him.

Then, last Saturday night I got a phone call that changed everything.

Jack had been awake, tired, and slipping in and out of sleep all day. When the nurse went in to give him his dinner pills, he was unresponsive, moaning in obvious pain, and had a slight fever.

They called me right away and we discussed what was going to happen, care wise with him.

When I saw him the next morning ( which was only two days ago), he was comatose, his breathing labored, and his body twitching. I knew, the moment I saw him, the end was very near for him. The staff put him on a standing order of morphine to help with the pain. He couldn’t eat, drink, move. I sat at his bedside for a few hours, did about 10 decades of the rosary, and talked to him about my mother and his life. I kissed him goodbye, knowing in my heart I probably wasn’t going see him alive again.

Yesterday morning, at 5 am, I got a call that he had passed a few minutes prior.

Honestly, the first reaction I had? Relief. He was finally out of pain.

I am what is termed a cafeteria Catholic, which basically means, I believe most of the tenets of the mother church, but I believe it is a woman’s right to make her own medical decisions, and for people who are terminal to have a say in how they die.

If you don’t agree with me, that’s your choice. I just checked, and we still live in America, where we have the right of freedom of speech and ideas.

I’m telling you this because if you know anything about the rites of the church, Jack, as a Catholic, should have received the Sacrament of the sick ( last rites) prior to death. He didn’t. The Church claims his soul will reside in purgatory now and not go to heaven because of this.

I call supreme bullshit on that.

Jack, and everyone else who suffered through their final days and hours in my opinion, have their souls air expressed right up to Heaven, even bypassing St. Peter and his questions. Their mortal suffering is more purgatory than they deserve. Again, this is my opinion. Don’t agree? Okay.

The second emotion I had was gratitude: for the nursing staff who took such fabulous care of him, and all the people involved in his isolated life the past two years since my mother’s death.

The third? Happiness that he and my mother are together again. That’s all he really wanted. Just to be with her.

And he finally is.

It’s now Monday evening as I write this. I have to call the Funeral home to make sure the arrangements for his cremation are all okay. I don’t have anyone to notify about his death because Jack was the last of his line. He buried 4 brothers and a sister, all in their early 50s. Jack was the only one to last this long.

He died, penniless, having been put on Medicaid just last month. One thing he used to say has been repeating in my brain all day. “How can a person get to the end of their life after working like a dog and have nothing left?”

My mother was the one who managed the finances in their home. She was the one who planned for the day they would enter a long term care facility on their own dime. And I paid the monthly fee on that care until the money ran out, ridiculously, last month. Jack qualified for Medicaid and was placed on it. I never told him the money was gone when he asked because I knew how it would weigh on him.

Instead, he died – I hope – knowing that he was cared for, loved, and will be missed.

Best stepfather ever…and I wish I’d told him that more.

~ Peg

Together again…

My stepfather went to join my mother today in Heaven.

In all honesty, although I’m sad…I am so happy for them both, that they are together again.

Birthday Girl…

36 years ago on this date, at 6:48 a.m. after laboring for over 72 hours, my baby girl came into the world.

And changed our lives forever.

In her 36 years she has accomplished many things…just a few inlcude:

Starting karate at the age of 4 and being the only girl in her class for years!

She was a flower girl in her babysitter’s wedding when she was barely 3…and her aunt’s when she was 5

She graduated high school after learning to play 4 instruments, then graduated from an Ivy League college with honors.

She’s traveled the world…been more places than I can ever hope to be!

She Sky dived in New Zealand…

Ran the New York City marathon…and a few other cities as well…

Gotten married, become a home owner, and had 2 exceptionally beautiful and smart children who are the loves of my life…

and she has still remained my baby in every way. I couldn’t love her more if I tried, and in truth, I love her more each and every day.

She’s lived a wonderful life so far for her 36 years.

I can’t wait to see what the future has in store for her.

Happy Birthday, Erin.

Books, Books, Books is almost here!

This Saturday, September 20th, I will be in Lancaster, PA along with over 100 authors and vendors participating in the annual Books, Books, Books event.

I will have a wealth of my Paranormal romance books for sale…

In addition to RETRIBUTION and DEATH BETWEEN THE PAGES

On a lighter, more romancey note, I’m also bringing my MATCH MADE IN HEAVEN series and the current HEAVEN’S MATCHMAKER books

There’s a charm bracelet giveaway for the first 100 people through the door and I’m one of the participating authors.

And….as a special offering – I’ve got 3 of my books that are no longer in print available under the BLIND DATE WITH A BOOK category. Stop by my tables, #61 and 62, to check everything out!!

So, Come join me at Books Books Books 2025 on Saturday,
September 27, 2025 at Wyndham Lancaster Resort EXPO CENTER, 2300 Lincoln Hwy E, Lancaster,
PA 17602 from 12:30 – 5 p.m. 135 authors (including me!) from various genres will be on-hand selling
and signing their books. Purchase tickets in advance through JotForm for $5 to be eligible for raffle
prizes. VIP tickets are available for $50. VIPs get a special tote, an anthology, and a dedicated hour
with the authors from 10-11 a.m.
This event is weather independent – rain or shine, we’ll be there!
Come join us!

~ Peg

The meaning behind the dedication…

in my newest Heaven’s Matchmaker release.

First, I have to show you this:

Don’t they look so pretty all in a series row on Amazon? LOL

Now, the final book in the HEAVEN’S MATCHMAKER series, YOU’RE MY MATCH is up for preorder across all digital media. On Amazon, you can preorder it here: ZON On every other platform such as Kobo, Apple books, etc, You can order it here: universal.

Now, this book is dedicated to someone I have never met, and probably never will, but she was instrumental in helping me develop one of the most important secondary characters in the book, CarlieRae Quinlan, Charity Quinlan’s mother, our FMC.

Charity is from Mississippi, as are her parents, CarlieRae and Rory Quinlan. And on the page, they SOUND as southern as they can be – in the best possible way. To get the phraseology and cadence down pat, I used comedienne LEANNE MORGAN as my spirit guide for CarlieRae, and because she was perfection – I dedicated the book to her. Here’s the dedication:

To comedienne and fabulous human being, LEANNE MORGAN. Why, you ask, am I dedicating a book to a celebrity I have never met? Because she was the inspiration for CarlieRae Quinlan. Without Ms. Morgan’s wit, comedic timing, and insight into human nature, mothering, and menopause, CarlieRae would never exist.

When you read YOU’RE MY MATCH, and if you have ever seen Ms Morgan perform, you will HEAR her voice when CarlieRae is on the page, speaking. I guarantee it.

Finally…preorder links

for YOU’RE MY MATCH.

It seems like it took me forever to do this, but I finally have links for preorder for the fourth and final book in the HEAVEN’S MATCHMAKER series, YOU’RE MY MATCH.

As of today, the book is available for preorder across all digital media, using this link: UNIVERSAL LINK

Her job as an assistant wedding planner means everything to Charity Quinlan. She’s got a bullet point plan for her future and she’s not about to let anything get in the way of her goals. But a drunken hookup with a coworker – a guy she’s had a hate/hate relationship with from the get-go – may put her plan in jeopardy.  Charity has to ensure her boss never finds out about her indiscretion. But every day it’s getting harder to hide how much she wants a repeat of that amazing night.

His life is a series of one-night stands and Kolby O’Brian is not about to change his status for anyone – not even the little fireball who’s been the bane of his existence since the first day they met. Why, then, are his eyes always straying to Charity when he should be concentrating on work? And why does being around her suddenly make him want to be a different kind of man? A better one? One who thinks about…the future?

These two polar opposites need to decide if they want a future together or a life without the other in it, because an emotional volcano is churning and it’s about to erupt.

I am so glad this book is up for preorder. As the last book in the series, I had an emotional time writing it, and I think I was able to convey all that emotion into the story!

And don’t forget, until September 7, 2025, the first three books are all available across digital media for just 99 cents each. You can read all three books for less than $3.00 before the fourth comes out!!

Mix and Match ( Book 1)

Love Match (book 2)

Perfect Match ( Book 3)

and look how nice all 4 books look together:

I’m so happy with these covers and stories ( because I created both!! LOL)

Happy reading, kids ~ Peg

A new @Booksprout campaign…

If you’re on Booksprout, I have a new book campaign for you to join. I’ve put the arc to YOU’RE MY MATCH up on the read and review platform for 1 month, starting today.

If you like sweet with heat romances, enemies to lovers, workplace romance, matchmakers and small town romance books, you might want to give this one a read through.

I will tell you about some triggers, though, before your request it: the book deals with the mental health concerns of bipolar disorder, hoarding behavior, and self-harm. If any of those are triggers, emotionally for you, you might want to pass, or just know about it in advance so it doesn’t sneak up on you.

I loved telling Charity and Kolby’s story. From the first time you met them in DEARLY BELOVED, A Match Made in Heaven, book 1, I’ve been thinking about their story and how to get them to their own HEA. It took a while ( 9 years, lol!) but they finally got to learn to love one another.

Requesting YOU’RE MY MATCH on Booksprout means you will read the book and write an objective review of it to be uploaded to either Goodreads or Amazon on publication day, which is 11.24.25. So you’ve got plenty of time to read the book before the review is needed.

Thanks for requesting it ( if you do) and happy reading, kids.

~ Peg

It’s National Matchmaker day…

and here’s a present from me to you!

Happy NATIONAL MATCHMAKER DAY! I love a matchmaker story, don’t you?? In real life and in fiction, lol! I actually know a few people who were matched using one, so I am especially happy for them today.

Now, my little present – I’ve put all the ebooks in my HEAVEN’S MATCHMAKER series on sale starting to day and going until 9.7 for just 99cents each. You can get all three for less than 3 bucks across all digital media ( kindle, nook, apple, etc.)

And pretty soon I’ll be putting the last book in the series, YOU’RE MY MATCH, up for preorder for the 11.24.25 release date!

So, sit back and enjoy this momentous day with a series all about…the day!! Lol. Or I should say…Matchmakers!