Danielle Steel's Blog, page 56

You Won’t Miss the Boat

Hi everyone,

Well the New Year is underway, and I hope it’s off to a good start for you.

I was reading something the other day, and came across a little phrase that I really liked. I was reading a religious magazine, which I often do, to get back on track, or if I am stressed, tired, or feeling anxious, it reassures and relaxes me. Whatever works, for each of us. And that works for me. And as I was reading, a simple sentence jumped out at me right off the page. (The other phrase that jumped out at me and I loved was one that I firmly believe: “A good marriage is the union of two good forgivers”. I firmly believe that forgiveness is essential to any good relationship, whether romantic, familial, or even business, or between 2 friends. Forgiveness is essential).

I don’t know about you, but I question myself a lot, second guess myself at times, I lie in bed at night sometimes and rehash the day, trying to figure out what I did right or wrong. Did I give someone a chance, did I cut them off, did I listen to them thoroughly, was I too opinionated or closed-minded to hear them? Was I fair? Was my decision right? And in relationships, the age old question has haunted me, did I stay too long, did I give it a fair shot, should I have stayed longer, or given up a lot sooner? And probably like a lot of people, I beat myself up, thinking that if I had done things differently, the results might have been better. Did I miss the chance of a lifetime—did I miss the boat??? (Or did I escape a cruise on the Titanic?).

The little phrase I read answered my question. I felt a wave of relief sweep over me, as I read the simple sentence “No one will be allowed to miss the boat”. It was an article that said you can’t be left out, you can’t be deprived of the good life has in store for you, you’re not going to miss your Big Chance. Wow!!! What a fantastically reassuring thought. All the scrambling and thinking I’ve done, the worrying, the planning, the rushing into something so as not to miss a great opportunity, and then there it is “No one will be allowed to miss the boat.” Wow! Wow! Wow!!! I love that…..so I didn’t miss the boat and you didn’t either. The right boat is still sitting there at the dock, waiting for us, whether that is a work opportunity, a relationship, or a person, or even a talent we have that we haven’t developed yet, but would like to do something with. “No one will be allowed to miss the boat”. The ship won’t sail without us. The ones that did weren’t on my itinerary and weren’t meant for me. I find it incredibly reassuring to see that, and believe it. So pack your bags and get ready. YOUR ship is waiting for you, and mine is waiting for me…..and it won’t leave without us. What a great way to start the New Year, knowing that we will be in the right place, at the right time, just when it counts. I hope hearing that makes you feel as good as it made me feel. Our ship is waiting for us——and hopefully we’ll catch that ship, whatever it is for you, this year!!!

Love, Danielle

The Many Faces of New Year’s Eve

When my children were small, my husband John and I would let them ‘stay up til midnight’, which was Big excitement for them!! What they didn’t know was that we set our clocks ahead, and ‘midnight’ was really about 9 pm, when we would serve them ginger ale when they were really young, and later non-alcoholic champagne. They would blow horns and rattle noise-makers, jump around and ‘celebrate’, and by 10 pm (for real, although they thought it was 1 am), we would get them all in bed, and then he and I would happily fall into bed in our pajamas, eat popcorn and watch old movies on TV, and finish off the ginger ale (neither of us drank alcohol).  I had absolutely no desire to get dressed up, go out, or dance the new year in. I was totally happy at home with my husband and kids. New Year’s had never been a night that particularly appealed to me. With drunk drivers on the roads, rowdy people partying, it just never seemed like much fun to me, and I was much happier at home.

Fast forward the film by a few years, a divorce, some time alone, with quiet New Year’s Eves alone with my kids, and then I remarried, and my new husband and I began giving small elegant dinners on New Year’s Eve. We would have 20 friends in black tie and evening gowns for dinner at our house. A DJ or a few musicians to dance after dinner. The kids were old enough to be with their own friends by then, or have a pajama party in sleeping bags in our playroom. But our adult New Year’s Eves were very elegant and dignified for a number of years.

Fast forward the film again, and in the game of marital or romantic musical chairs, I wound up without a seat, and was alone again. And I continued the elegant black tie New Year’s Eve dinners for a number of years on my own. It wasn’t much fun at midnight when everybody kissed, but it was nicer spending the night with friends, than alone watching TV. So I soldiered on. And then one New Year’s Eve, there was a big storm in San Francisco, floods in neighbouring counties, and roads became impassable into the city. At 6 pm, the cook who was going to come and prepare our dinner called to tell me that he couldn’t come into the city to cook my New Year’s Eve dinner. Uh oh. Major Dilemma. At 6 pm, what do you do? Call everyone and cancel? But that would leave them all dressed up with nothing to do, which seemed mean. I hated to disappoint my friends on a night like New Year’s Eve. But I could hardly expect them to show up and not give them dinner. I make great French toast, pretty good tacos, and food that most 5 year olds will eat, but I’m no genius in the kitchen, and somehow I didn’t think they’d be thrilled with peanut butter sandwiches for dinner. Mmmm…..By then it was 7 pm, and they were due to arrive an hour later, and the old proverb came to mind “Necessity is the mother of invention.” The table was set, I had a few musicians hired so we could dance after dinner, we had everything we needed, but….ooops, no food. And there was no hope of producing a fancy dinner for my guests, on an hour’s notice, in a storm, with no one to cook it. So I got in my car and drove around to all the fast food places I could think of: pizza, Chinese take-out, McDonald’s for burgers and fries, corn dogs, I think I bought tacos and burritos. I bought a mountain of food, and weird desserts, and rushed home to dress. When the guests arrived, I explained what had happened and said we were going to have a fast food picnic in black tie——and it was one of the most fun, ridiculous, funny evenings we ever had. Everyone was in evening gowns, wearing the paper top hats and tiaras I had on the table, eating hot dogs and hamburgers, dripping sweet and sour sauce, or eating tacos, calling down the table about who had the mustard, ketchup or curly fries. It was ridiculous, but a lot of fun. It was like going to a kids’ birthday party all dressed up, and we all agreed we loved it. (Personally, I’d rather eat a hot dog any day than a fancy dinner!!! Among my ‘celebrity dinners’, I had hot dogs for lunch at Whoopi Goldberg’s house once when she invited me to lunch, and Southern Fried Chicken and meat loaf at Dolly Parton’s for dinner. They were the two best meals I ever had dining with major stars, and I remember those two meals distinctly and none of the others. I like simple food much more than fancy food, so our dinner on New Year’s Eve that year was right up my alley!!). We all loved it so much, that our fast food New Year’s Eve dinners, in black tie and evening gowns, became a tradition for many years. We ALL loved it, and I loved the incongruousness of a friend in a tuxedo or evening gown eating curly fries, with ketchup dribbling down their chin. It always made me laugh. Those evenings were really fun, and were instantly relaxed, as we passed around the corn dogs, tacos, and pizza. Great stuff!!

Fast forward the film again, and I finally decided that it wasn’t so much fun not getting kissed at midnight (I never seemed to have a date for those events. Bad planning, or bad luck, or something), so I decided we needed some other distraction, and I LOVE to play poker. So New Year’s Eve became a poker night, still in black tie/evening gowns, with the same fast food menu, and a little dancing after for those who wanted to. On a good night, I would win $20.00, and had a ball playing poker, after eating hot dogs.

And in the last couple of years, I’ve begun to wonder if all the fuss is really worth it. If it wouldn’t just be simpler to go to bed early, and watch movies, or even work that night. I began to think that I had done New Year’s Eve enough different ways to come full circle, and maybe I would skip it. I worried that I might regret it, and that doing nothing on New Year’s Eve might be depressing. It’s an expensive night to have a caterer or a band, and I just figured maybe I would finally give up on New Year’s Eve and do nothing. I’m not sure what the best way is to spend it, but this year I’ve decided no poker, no dancing, and not even fast food, and not in black tie. This year, 5 of my old friends (not in age, but in longevity of our friendship) are going to come over for a simple dinner, hang out together until midnight, and then they’ll go home. And maybe, probably, since I’m a night owl, I might even work for a while, writing, after everyone goes home right after midnight. Maybe we’ll play a little poker after dinner and before midnight, or just laugh and talk. They can wear whatever they want. It’s an experiment. If it’s fun, we’ll do it again. If not, we’ll try something else next year, or reinstate the poker game and hot dogs.  It’s not an easy evening to plan or figure out in advance. If you’re married or in a relationship, it’s a lot easier to plan. You know who you want to be with, whatever you decide to do. It’s not quite as easy if you’re single.

So whatever you decide to do on New Year’s Eve, and whoever you spend it with, I hope you have a wonderful time on New Year’s Eve, that it lives up to your expectations, and that when midnight rolls around, I hope it’s exactly what you want it to be. Maybe what I have learned over these various New Year’s Eves, is that you have to be flexible, have a sense of humor about it, and try different things. I’ll let you know how it turns out. And however you spend the night, as 2013 dawns, I hope that the New Year will bring you, health, peace, joy, great times, good friends, success, and sees all your dreams come true. I hope that 2013 will be the best year ever, for all of you!!!

Love, Danielle

Happy Merry

Christmas. Just the word evokes so many memories. Good ones, sad ones, the excitement of Christmas as a child. Maybe more than any other, it is a word that evokes something different for each of us. The Christmas cards and snow scenes look the same, but the memories don’t. There are as many interpretations of the holidays as there are people in the world. For some, it was a magical time in their childhood and youth, and still is as adults. For others, it was bitterly disappointing as children, but has improved. For some it is the loneliest time of the year, and for others the time they most look forward to, when their family gets together.   A friend of mine remarried several years ago, she had children and so did her new husband, but their traditions were completely different, she had always overdone Christmas with lots of fun and decorations, their new family’s style was more austere, with few gifts and almost no decorations. They tried to compromise and find a middle ground on their first Christmas together, and she called me to report that all the children, his and hers, had wound up crying on Christmas Day, as one of them said in a wail, “Can’t we have a NORMAL Christmas?”  A “Normal” Christmas, or holiday, is different to each of us. Even in the same family, people have different ideas about how it should be.

I didn’t have a particularly warm childhood, and grew up alone with my very rigid, somewhat severe German father, but Christmas was ‘his thing’. He loved it, and he made Christmas wonderful for me. The house was decorated, he gave Christmas parties for his friends, gifts were almost always what I’d hoped for. A great uncle spoiled me every year with things I didn’t need, but loved. (A log cabin for our garden one year. And a red nightgown set one year with gold stars on it, which I thought was incredibly glamourous at 7. I don’t own anything nearly as fancy now!!). Christmas was a warm and happy time in my childhood, and I have tried to make it that way for my kids too. And I think they all love Christmas. When they were little, each child had a tiny Christmas tree in their room, which they could decorate as they wished, and a big one in the hall, which we all decorated together, and even one downstairs. Christmas has always been a big event at our house, and still is. I look forward to it all year. Gingerbread houses, brownies we made for friends and teachers and delivered in bright holiday tins. Christmas Eve dinner together, and again on Christmas Day. A children’s church service we went to, and still do, on Christmas Eve. We try to remember the traditions and what they mean, and not just focus on the gifts!! And even now, with my adult children spread out in different cities, I am very grateful that everyone comes home. And I was fortunate that the children’s father shared my love for Christmas, and enjoyed it as much as the children and I did. (I have friends who hate the holidays with a passion, which always seems sad, but usually bad holidays in their youth got them off to a bad start). And yes, it can be a commercial event, but underneath all that are the good feelings and tender moments, and the gathering of people one loves.

I still write my children letters from Santa, for them to find on Christmas morning, telling them how terrific they are, how proud ‘Santa’ is of them, and could they keep their rooms just a teeny weeny bit neater next year. It’s kind of a joke by now, but everyone looks for their letters from Santa on Christmas morning. And last year they wrote me one—-turnabout is fair play!!! We still leave out carrots and salt for the reindeer, and cookies and milk for Santa, even now, and magically all of it is gone in the morning when we wake up!!!

But along with the joys are the inevitable bittersweet moments too, the people who are missing and no longer with us, the plans that have gone awry, the dreams that didn’t come true. In some cases, the family that has dispersed. It’s a time for joy for some, but for loneliness too. The pain of being alone over the holidays can be agonizingly acute. And even in families, or big gatherings, one can sometimes feel desperately alone. The holidays are not entirely easy for anyone, and it’s a stressful time of year, filled with too much to do, and events, our own expectations, and others’ expectations of us.

My wish for all, whatever your holidays, is that they are happy ones. I went to a dinner party in Paris that turned out to be a gathering of friends and family on the first day of Hanukkah. The candles were lit and a traditional song was sung in Hebrew. It was beautiful and touching as the children gathered around. Whatever your traditions or beliefs, or even lack of them, I hope that these holidays bring you some kind of joy, some tender moments and peace. Sometimes the holidays we least expect to turn out well surprise us, and turn out to be special times, far more than we hoped. I hope that these holidays exceed your hopes and dreams, and that good surprises will come your way. My thoughts are with you, and I wish you very, very special holidays.

Love, Danielle

Sandy Hook

Hi everyone, I am in Paris as I write this, and news and details are sparse here about the shooting in Connecticut, but we have heard of it, and everyone is saddened by it. So shocking, so sad. So unthinkable, to open fire on people, and especially children. And even more agonizing to think that the parents of those children must have been preparing for the holidays, picking gifts, planning family events, maybe talking about Santa Claus……and now they will be mourning their lost children and loved ones. A sudden, instant, turnaround of everything they hoped, believed and planned. And how will the other children ever feel safe in school again??

And sadly, this is not something we’ve never heard of, it’s not an event we are unfamiliar with. It brings instantly to mind the university shooting in Tennessee not so long ago, the terrible shooting at the Amish one room school house, and others all the way back to Columbine in Colorado. It is truly a national tragedy for us that such deeply troubled people go unnoticed, untreated and unstopped until they have taken all these young lives, and altered the course forever of the lives of those who survived it. Incredible trauma. And I dread thinking that we will hear of other events like this again one day. There have always been these terrible school and random shootings all the way back to my own youth. What rage and deep illness leads the perpetrators of these crimes to want to hurt so many, and carry out our worst nightmares on so many innocents.

My heart aches for the parents, the families, all of the victims, all of those who lost loved ones or friends. There are no words to make this better, and worse, there seems to be no way to stop it happening again. My heart and prayers go out to all of the people in Connecticut, affected by this event, and to all of us who go about our lives, thinking we are safe, leading our lives, carrying out our plans, and then a nightmare like this happens and changes each of us forever. We all talk about and worry about terrorism in the world, politicians argue about gun control…..but an event like this isn’t even about issues, it is just about immense sadness, and all those precious lives that were lost. You are all deep in my heart with profound sympathy and much love, Danielle

Back in the States, in New York, two days after I wrote my initial thoughts about the tragic school shooting at Sandy Hook, I’ve now watched some of the coverage on CNN, and heard the President speak at the Memorial in Newtown on Sunday night. I am bowled over by the magnitude of the tragedy, those shining young 6 and 7 year old faces that I hadn’t seen before while I was still in Paris. It is such an unthinkable, unfathomable event, the idea that a disturbed 20 year old person can enter a school, wielding an assault rifle, which he obtained in his own home——-and gunned down 20 children and 6 adults before taking his own life (and began by killing his mother before the rampage at the school). As I said in what I wrote from Paris, this is not the first time we have watched with horror events like this, at schools and universities. Something is desperately awry in our society and our world for something like this to happen, not once but several times. No society is entirely exempt from madness of this kind, but we seem to be more vulnerable to it than most nations. I know from my own work with our foundation which deals with mental illness that we do not do enough in this country for our mentally ill. Very sick young people slip through the cracks in our society far too often, sometimes they take their own lives, but in some instances like this one, they take other lives as well. And gun control is a sensitive issue in this country, and people clamor over their second amendment rights to bear arms—but there is no question, weapons are far easier to obtain in the US than in most other civilized countries, often with tragic results. President Obama answered the question eloquently as to whether we are doing enough to protect our children in this country, and his answer was No. I can only hope that the tragedy at the Sandy Hook school will lead to new and different measures to stop events such as this from happening again, although the staff at Sandy Hook was well prepared, and had had drills for situations like this one. The very fact that our schools need ‘drills’ to prepare for the possibility of a gunman attacking a school is a tragedy in itself.

Beyond the issues, the laws, the constitution, the possible solutions is the simple fact of 27 people dead, 20 of them children, 6 of them teachers who died trying to protect them. Grieving parents and grandparents and friends, the unthinkable loss of children so young. Those adorable smiling faces in the photographs being shown on TV. The unbearable ache in their parents’ hearts, the agony of an entire community mourning them. Having lost a son who was 19 years old, I know the terrible loss of losing a child only too well, the long, long string of days and months and even years when you simply have to get through each day as best you can, with a terrible ache in your soul. And to have young children die by violence, and even the young teachers and principal, must be a special kind of agony that none of us who haven’t lived through it can barely imagine. For this moment in time, like all of you, I can only offer my deepest sympathy and prayers, and tears, along with the entire nation. And the family of the perpetrator must be equally in shock, and dealing with their loss as well. No one can imagine an event like this, and the devastation it wreaks on all involved, and even those of us who are unrelated and only see it on the news. There are no words to express how sad we all are, how broken the grief stricken parents must feel right now. I send my love and prayers and sorrow as a mother, and my deepest condolences to all.

Love, Danielle

Heartfelt Thanks

Hi everyone. So many of you have written such sweet posts and good wishes to my daughter who lost her home in Hurricane Sandy, that I wanted to take this opportunity to thank you. It was a shocking, traumatic experience, and a great loss to her.  Most of all I am grateful that both of my daughters in New York are alive, and weren’t physically injured. And their dogs survived it too. But one step beyond that, there are the things we cherish, the memories attached to things we have saved or collected, and the nest we build as a safe haven from the world. Losing that haven is like having a layer of yourself ripped away, and I have watched with sadness and dismay how saddened and displaced my daughter felt when she lost her home. It’s like being a turtle without a shell. And we question ourselves for being attached to material objects, a favorite chair, a dress we loved that something important happened to you when you were wearing, photographs of beloved people that can’t be replaced, and it hurts to lose the things we love. Right or wrong, a piece of our identity is wrapped up in those things, and it is hard to lose any of that. I know that time will heal the wounds, but it was a catastrophic event for so many. And to reassure those of you who asked about my daughter, she is okay. I’m sure it is a time in her life that she will never forget, but she is grateful to be alive. As bad as it was, it could have been worse, and has been for many people, particularly those who lost loved ones. But thank you with all my heart for asking about my daughter and sending good wishes. We truly appreciate it, and I have passed your kind thoughts on to her.

After my initial stay in New York for nearly two weeks with her, I went back to California for Thanksgiving with many of my kids (not all, since the married ones go to their in laws (half of my kids now, 4 out of 8), in order to be home with us for Christmas), and it was a grateful time. The daughter who lost her home in the hurricane came home, still looking shaken by what she’d been through, but I think happy to be home for a few days, where nothing was gone, and nothing had changed. It was a constant she could come home to, to the arms of people who love her. (We stupidly watched the insurance video during the weekend, taken the morning after Sandy hit, and it nearly broke my heart at what we saw, the total jumble of debris strewn everywhere in what had been her impeccable home before. (We all cried).

And at the end of the weekend, we went back to New York, and I went with her to help her move into a temporary apartment—–far from the river’s edge!!! Moving into a temporary furnished apartment seemed sensible for a while, and we were lucky to find one, and happy that we did. I was happy, that she would have even a temporary home, I think she was numb. And there were good moments and bad ones. My heart sank as the movers arrived with the little she had been able to save. They arrived with plates, glasses, and some books. And that was it. I think seeing all that was missing made the loss even more acute. I wanted to cry for her (again), knowing how sad she was. You couldn’t help but look around and think of all that was no longer there. But I guess that’s what life does to all of us. (And it’s what I write about). Sometimes it knocks us flat on our ass, knocks the wind out of us, and totally flattens us, and who we are is about how we meet the challenge. No matter how difficult it is, you have to get up again. But no question, there were some tough and heart rending moments during the move. One of my other daughters had given her some furniture, I sent some from California, we had what came with the furnished apartment, and then we bought things like a vacuum cleaner, an ironing board, pots and pans, toaster, microwave, all the stuff we take for granted but is part of daily life.

And as I made my way around New York, gathering what she needed, the full spectrum of human behaviour was on display. Everyplace I went were other people who had been flooded out and lost everything, some with much worse experiences than ours, or hers. I met one incredibly nice young man, working in a store, who is currently living on a friend’s couch, and has been for a month. Thirty feet of water hit the building where he lives, a generator blew up and spread gas everywhere, into all the apartments, and the police won’t even let tenants into the building for another four months, because it’s too dangerous, but he already knows he lost everything, and his parents lost their home on Long Island. There were endless stories, and lots of brave people making the best of it. All of the buildings in my daughter’s street are shut down, too badly damaged to be inhabited until they are repaired. Downtown Manhattan is struggling to its feet, but has a long, long way to go, with millions of dollars of damage to be repaired, by individuals, as well as the city. The lower part of Manhattan still looked like a war zone when I got back, and will for a long time. Like any kind of shocking event, people are left feeling vulnerable and no longer safe. When the worst happens, you know that bad things can happen to you, and you never feel quite as safe again.

There are kind people and not so kind people dealing with the hurricane victims. Countless people who will do anything they can to help. Others who see it as an opportunity to take advantage of people who are sorely in need, and that’s not pretty to watch. Some stores are offering discounts to flood victims, donations are being made. And in other cases, landlords with apartments to rent are raising the rents (instead of lowering them), knowing how desperate people are. A catastrophic event brings out the best in some people, and the worst in others.

The memory of Hurricane Sandy will fade, particularly in the public mind. It will remain vivid for those who lived it, and hopefully the pain and shock will dim and ease in time. Going through something as awful and shocking as that teaches you something about yourself, what you care about, what truly matters to you, what you can do without, how you feel about your fellow man, and how tiny we are in the face of the forces of nature, and how little we can control at times, or nothing at all. It teaches you to be resilient, to be strong, how much you can endure, and where your limits of tolerance are for loss and pain. You learn to be strong when you have no other choice. I saw a lot of strong, brave, resilient people in New York, and met a lot of kind ones in the days and weeks after the hurricane. And to all of you who reached out to my daughter, and to me, for all your kindness and compassion, heartfelt thanks, from the bottom of my heart.

Love, Danielle

When My Stomach Speaks to Me

Hi Everyone,

I had an experience recently, which was all too familiar. It’s something that happens in business sometimes, in employee/employer relationships, romantic ones, or even in families.  For me, it usually happens in human relations, and it’s a matter of hearing and following your instincts and good judgment. It’s what happens when you get new information (and not necessarily good information) in a situation. It has happened to me typically when I hire a new employee. All is hopeful at first, you’ve made what you think is an intelligent decision, after reading their resume, checking their references, maybe even comparing them to other candidates for the job, and you selected them!! All seems to be on track and you move ahead, confident in your decision…..and then three weeks later, or six weeks, something you don’t like happens, maybe just a small thing, and a yellow light goes off in your head. Caution: New information. At first I like to tell myself that whatever the event was that put my yellow light on was just a one-off, maybe an innocent mistake. I go forward, telling myself everything will be okay.  Fast forward: Three weeks later, a month, two, something worrisome happens again……now the yellow light is flashing, I get a knot in my stomach, and I start to get worried. Some people are more optimistic than others. But I know for myself once those yellow light incidents start happening, it is never a good sign. And pretty soon that flashing yellow light turns to red, and my stomach is talking to me, loud and clear. And eventually, the message is clear: This isn’t going to work. Damn. And it all looked so hopeful…..but I made a mistake, and my faith in that person was misplaced. It has happened to me in work situations, in business, in relationships. I think one of the moments I hate most is when that first yellow light goes on, at the first warning sign that something is not right. I like to give someone plenty of chances, and not jump to conclusions too quickly, but by the time you have a knot in your stomach, and your stomach is talking to you, you KNOW it’s not going to work. It happens that first time a boyfriend lies to you and you catch him at it, and he tells you some long convoluted story about why he was four hours late, or why he didn’t come home that night. You WANT to believe his story, and maybe you do…..until it happens again…..and again…..and again….and you can’t avoid the truth anymore.

And once my red lights are on, and the sirens are blaring, I may or may not deal with it at that exact moment, but whether I do or not, I know that sooner or later I am going to have to face the music and admit that I made a mistake and misjudged a person or a situation. I HATE when that happens, and when my stomach starts talking to me I want to say “oh just shut up”. But my stomach is never wrong, and I’m sure yours isn’t either. When my stomach starts talking to me, whether I like it or not, it is the beginning of the end. Don’t you hate it when that happens? But in most cases, our instincts are pretty good. And the older I get, the more I listen to them. Not listening to my instincts about a situation has never served me well. So there you are, when your stomach starts talking, you have to listen…..and then deal with it when you can. I hate that moment as much as everyone else, but I guess those instincts save us from letting a mistake continue and turning into an even bigger mess. So when my stomach speaks to me, I know I have no choice but to listen. Ugh!!

Love, Danielle

The Process and The Team

Hi Everyone,

As some of you know, from reading my Blogs on a variety of subjects, I’ve reacted with amazement, shock, and outrage when people have asked me in my fan mail, who writes my books.  WHO writes my BOOKS??? Are you kidding? Who do you think writes my books, as I hover over my typewriter for weeks at a time, working on a first draft, with unbrushed hair, in an ancient nightgown, with every inch of my body aching after typing 20 or 22 hours a day at a stretch. That’s who writes my books: Me. and in recent years, I’ve discovered from my agent and publisher that it has become common practice for some very well-known successful authors to write the outline for a book, and hand it over to a team of writers to write the book. Holy Sh–!!! How do they do that?? Both the author and the elves. I have a fit when a copy editor fiddles with a word, or moves a comma. I WRITE EVERY WORD of the books myself. And believe me, by the end of the book, I look it, and am pretty beaten up and look like I’ve been through the wars, it’s hard work!!!. But bleeding fingers (for real!), aching hands (I popped a vein in my hand on my last book, which has happened before),screaming muscles, and aching back, I still wouldn’t trade that for anything, and would never just hand off an outline for someone else to write. It wouldn’t be my voice, or my book, if I did. And I simply cannot imagine having someone else write it. For me, the story and the process is like a movie I hear in my head, a vision that I see, like a movie I’m watching as I write, as the ideas and concept flow (from an outline I work on for a year before I write the first draft), and I write what I hear in my head. Whose book would it be if they were writing what they hear in their head? I can’t imagine it. So I definitely write the books myself. 126 books so far. (My acupuncturist wants me to get to 200. I’m trying!!)

But as I sent off a bunch of emails today, to the people most important to me, and my writing life, I realized that I do in fact have a ‘team’. They don’t write the books, but they make it possible for me to do it, and each one is incredibly important to me. Many of them have been in my life for a long time. All are wonderful people, and I thought it might be fun to introduce them to you here, and tell you what they do.  I wrote my first book at 19, and have been hard at work at it ever since, and several of these people have made my writing life both possible and easier over the years.

My kids of course, to whom I dedicate the books. Only three of them actually read the books, the others are just happy that I do it. I’ve never talked about my work a lot with them. When they were kids, I never did. I am just their Mom, and I never made an issue of my career when they were younger. They say they didn’t even know I was famous til they went to college, which is exactly the way I wanted it. I talk about my work more with them than I used to, when they were younger, and I think it’s important that they know I love what I do (which is a huge blessing). When they were kids, I wrote when they were asleep, or in school, so I would have free time with them and for them when they were at home. And now that they’re grown up, I write all the time!!! I used to dedicate my books to my husband too, but since I’m not married or in partnership now, I just dedicate the books to the kids. Each book I write is a kind of gift to them, from my heart.  And to YOU, my beloved and greatly appreciated readers!!! Without you, there would be no one to read the books!!! So you are a VERY important part of the process and team too.

The man at the top of the pyramid is my agent. His name is Mort Janklow. He is extremely famous and a remarkable person. Without him, I probably wouldn’t have the career I do today. I had another agent previously. Actually one who fired me when I wrote my first book (and no longer admits it), and another agent I had for my early books, in the beginning, before I became well known.  Mort represents a long list of extremely famous authors. He’s an attorney, a brilliant businessman, an extraordinary agent, a wonderful person, and beloved friend. He has been my agent for almost 32 years. He has made all the important events in my career happen, and has supported me through every book. He defends me like a lion, calms me down when I get angry, rights injustices, forces me to be reasonable (ugh, but I love him anyway). He is the voice of reason, wisdom, and compassion in my life.  I don’t think I would have become famous without him. He has incredibly advanced, brave, and creative ideas about the business end of publishing, and I even discuss the subjects of the books with him, and he gives me excellent comments and advice, on every aspect of my writing life. And when I think of Mort and the many experiences we have shared, what instantly comes to mind is his greatest act of friendship. When my son Nick died at 19, someone in my office called him immediately to tell him. I was in such a state of shock that I don’t remember talking to him myself. I got the news at nine in the morning, noon in New York where Mort lives and works. And by late that afternoon, my doorbell rang, and there was Mort. He must have gone straight from his office, had someone pack him a bag (his wonderful wife), and caught the next plane to San Francisco. He said he was there to do anything he could to help, and that’s what he did. He was there to help with my 8 kids, who were also in a state of shock, keep us company, shepherd the kids, talk to friends, answer phones, and even deal with my mother. It was an act of love and friendship I will never, ever forget, and he is very dear to my heart, and super, super, super important to my books. The sale of any book starts with him, and even the earliest conception of the book.

The other most important person in my writing life is my editor, Carole Baron. Editing is a separate skill from writing, and it is a gift. Very few people still edit today, it’s often done by amateurs, or people who think they know what they’re doing, and they don’t. (I could not edit a book, but I can write one). Writing without a good editor is like dressing in the dark—–you come out looking a mess, and so does the book. Carole has been editing my books for almost 32 years. She is a genius. Our work together is like a dance, sometimes like tennis or ping pong, and sometimes like ballet, with incredible harmony of thought. Or she makes a suggestion I don’t like but it inspires me to think of something else, and I bat it back to her, and we go back and forth, for hours at times. When I get an idea for a book, I call Carole, sometimes before the idea is even formed. “I have an idea for a book” I announce victoriously on the phone. And Carole is all ears and wants to know what it’s about. “It’s about a woman!”, and then I pause, and that’s all I’ve got….while Carole waits…..”uh….well…actually….I don’t have the rest of it worked out yet….” Great. “Call me back,” Carole says, and I do, many times, as I work out the story in my head, and we discuss it, as I fill in the holes, and then I write an outline, and she criticizes it, or makes suggestions, which I do or don’t like. And then finally, many months or even a year later (after thinking about it a lot), I write the first draft. And that’s where her skill comes in, and I have to brace myself and try to be brave about it. She sends me encouraging comments about what she does like, and then she sends the manuscript back to me, with comments on every page, whole sections torn apart or rejected, things she wants changed (it’s up to me how I change them, but she is like the teacher giving me the grade, and I rarely get above a C+ on the first round, and sometimes even a D-, and it’s up to me how I get my grade up.) I must say Shit a thousand times while I read her comments, and along with the notes on the manuscript (which is a mess by now, thanks to both of us), I get about a 50 page letter of corrections, AND an ‘editing letter’, with everything that’s wrong with the book. If you think I just whip the stories out and the publisher prints them, think again!!! And when you first read those comments, you want to go to bed and forget it, or give up writing, or maybe burn the book.  But then I start thinking about what she said, and I realize she’s right, that Chapter 3 moves too slowly, or chapter 7 is too fast, or a whole section of the book sounds flat, or we really don’t know who the hero is yet and we need to know more. She makes me think and sweat and struggle and go back to the book again, tear it all apart and make it better. You have to be willing to forget your ego, take harsh criticism, and have an open mind that maybe what you wrote is not perfect and you can do it better. She makes me WANT to make the books better. And the re-writes I do are MUCH harder than writing the original book. And sometimes I have to do that to a book 4 or 5 times (wanting to rip my hair out every time!!). But every single time I do it, I feel like I climbed Everest when it’s over, and I realize she was right, and the book is so much better after I re-write it, again and again and again, to get it right. It is a brutal process, and she is merciless in her pushing me to write the best possible book I can. Mort makes the best book deals possible and gives me the best overall advice, but Carole helps me write the best possible books I can. She stretches me to my limits and beyond. She is like a marathon trainer who pushes you until you think you’ll drop, and then pushes you some more, but the results are fantastic!!! The books are better because of her every time, and it’s worth the agony to get there!!! When you love one of my books, it’s because Carole beat me up until I got it right. And she is also a beloved friend after all these years. When Mort got on the plane in NY the day Nick died, Carole came with him, and manned the kids and the kitchen for a week along with him. One doesn’t have many friends like that in a lifetime. And I am so grateful to both of them.

The research and my researcher. As you know, I write both historical and contemporary novels. In historical novels, you need to carefully research wars, historical periods, the way a city looked at the time, maybe 100 years ago, and all the details of the historical era you’re writing about, or the event, or war, or whatever. In a ‘modern’ book, you need to know the city you are writing about, or the industry, or the situation, or the laws, or where the court house is, or what the Grand Jury rules are, or the best restaurants or hotels, or how long it takes to drive from Biloxi, Mississippi to Atlanta on which freeway (to give it reality), or what the local industry is, or the laws of the state are, whatever the book happens to be about. Or even the details of an illness, and the medications given for it, or how long a surgery takes, or how many people were at a certain concert, or the number of casualties in an actual plane crash. All the details you read in my books that relate to real life are real and carefully researched. Sometimes my researcher will go to a place if I haven’t been there, just to get the feel of it. And I even need to know what you see when you look out the window of a certain hotel, what does the city sound like, and smell like. How noisy is it? What do you hear? Crickets or bulldozers or fire engines? Nancy Eisenbarth is my researcher and is amazing. She is a historian by education, and She has done the research on my books since the very beginning, and I drive her insane, calling her at 3 am, or sending her emails, needing to know what floor something is on, how many people died in a famous fire, what is the decor of a certain restaurant, or a detail about a unit of the French Resistance in WW2. Nancy knows exactly what I need from ancient history to the present, and combs libraries, diaries, memoirs, history books, the Internet, to give me what I need. Like Carole, mercilessly demanding as close to perfection as I can get, Nancy will tell me that my idea just won’t work, because there was no train in that part of Nepal at that time….or the hotel I want to use was actually built 2 years later, or the surgery I want to use can’t be performed at that hospital in that year, She is the voice of reality, always calling me to order. And I only once cheated and wrote about a train that didn’t exist. But I try to keep the details in my book as real as I can, and Nancy keeps me on the straight and narrow and gives me absolutely fantastic information!! Once I have an idea for a book, I send her the outline so she’ll have an idea of what I’ll need when I write the book, and she starts sending me material for me to read and look over, about geographical areas (Ethiopia, Libya, Italy, the south of France, Arkansas, New York), historical people I may want to include in the book, or industries, locations, and world events. She sends me a huge amount of stuff, which I then whittle down and decide what I want to use. And then once I’ve written the book, I send her a list of precise questions (sometimes 100 of them) to verify that I have my facts right, or add further information (what street is such and such on? the name of a pizza parlor, or a Chinese restaurant). She too is a wonderful person, we are the same age, and have worked together since our late teens, early twenties, and our earliest common bond is that we discovered we were in love with the same boy at 13 !!! He was a lot cuter then than he turned out to be later! I met her through her older brother who is also a writer. Nancy has been a great gift in my life too. And without her I wouldn’t have all those great details and facts that give reality to the books (one of our best ones was “Zoya”, about the Russian Revolution, which we loved doing. I even knew what perfumes the grand Duchesses wore, and what their handwriting looked like). Each person makes a valuable contribution to the books. Even if the story is entirely mine, and all the hard work, they help me to get the best result I can in the end. And they all work hard to, on their specific contributions.

The Clean Up. After the work is done, I’ve written the book, and Carole has made me re-write it 6 times, and Nancy has given me all the factual details I need, by then the typewritten manuscript is a total mess. There are notes in all the margins, asterisks everywhere, things crossed out, coffee stains from Carole, chocolate smudges from my late nights with the book in my hand and a chocolate bar in my mouth, you sometimes have to turn a page 360 degrees just to read 4 different sets of notes, and my little hand written squiggles run right off the page…by then, no one can read it except me and Carole, it is almost totally illegible. And then it goes to Judythe Cohen in Mort’s office, and she types it into a clean version we can send to the publisher. She puts her heart and soul into it, and the best part is that she sends me running comments on it, about what she loved best, the characters or events that really moved her. She is the first person to read it who was not in on it from the beginning, and my first test of how the book sounds to someone else. She is incredibly generous with her praise, and she reassures me that we got it right. And the manuscript looks gorgeous, and is legible when she’s done!!

The Publisher. AFTER all the writing and editing and research and typing, Mort sends the finished book to the Publisher. I always hold my breath when I send the manuscript to Carole, my editor, terrified she’ll tell me I blew it entirely, and just throw the book away (she never has, but it’s always my worst fear). Then I have to go through that process again and now it’s For Real. What if the publisher hates the book, and she doesn’t like the way it turned out? What if all the hard work that went into it doesn’t capture her heart or imagination? I am always terrified when I send it in. I had one publisher for my first book, and a different one for all the books since. I have been with the same publishing house for 36 years now, so the ‘house’ is the same, but the person/the publisher has changed several times over the years. My current publisher is a wonderful woman, Jennifer Hershey, who believes in my books, is very supportive, and likes what I write. So she reads it, approves it, and I heave a sigh of relief. We did it!!! And after that, together we decide on a cover for the book, how it should look, the ads, and all the publishing details of the book. It is very exciting working with her, and very gratifying to work with someone who really cares about my work.

The Home Team. So those are all the people involved in the writing and business end of the books—-but then there are the people who make it possible for me to get the time and peace to do it. I have two incredibly wonderful assistants. Heather has worked with me for 22 years, and Allee for 10. Both started working with me when they were in their very early 20′s, barely more than kids. And they handle everything for me (other than writing), and shield me from the ‘real world’, while I hole up in my nightgown with my typewriter to write the books. It would be hard to get the peace and quiet I need without them fending off phone calls, pesty people, minor and major crises, and even friends, since I don’t talk to anyone except my kids when I’m writing.  The newest member of the Home Team is Alex my Paris assistant, who goes to San Francisco with me too. He has added a new element to my writing life: food.  I have terrible eating habits, and in my early days for some reason lived on a writing diet of liverwurst and Oreo Cookies, which became the subject of many jokes. I don’t take the time to stop and cook, or even eat, and I don’t want to stop and eat anything complicated while I work. All I think about is the book, and I’ll eat whatever is placed near me, without even noticing what it is. Finger food works best, and now thanks to Alex, trays appear next to me, with little bits of chicken, mozzarella, and even blueberries, and wonderful cappuccino. He’s Italian, and was horrified by some of what I would eat when I worked, or the fact that sometimes I didn’t bother to eat at all. If no one fed me, I just went without. So now I eat some great nibbly stuff while I work, which has added a new element to my writing life. And then of course there is always my unlimited supply of dark chocolate in my desk, without which I could not survive, at my desk, or anywhere!!! These three people are who and what make my life work, when I’m writing and when I’m not. They fend off press, protect me from paparazzi, talk to lawyers, bankers, plumbers, and handle my business life when I check out to write. They take wonderful care of me and are beloved friends as well. They make my life possible, and keep everything on track while I’m off in the land of my imagination, writing a book.

So that’s the whole team that helps make it all work. They don’t write the books, but without them I’d be lost. They are the very important people in my life, the elves in my life, while I do the work.  I may get the glory, but they are “The Wind Beneath My Wings”. My thanks and love to them, and to you for reading the books!!!

Love, Danielle

Giving Thanks

I like the idea of a holiday based on giving thanks and gratitude. There is something so healing and loving about it, a holiday where we don’t focus on ourselves and moan about how old we’re getting, or get presents, but a holiday where we reach out to others, to include them. We all have that Norman Rockwell vision of Thanksgiving, with a golden turkey on the table, and smiling family gathered around the table, and we also know that holidays don’t always work out that way, and can be fraught with stress, strife or disappointment or bitterly lonely for some. (Even the turkey can be challenging. One year, we dropped the turkey off the platter and it slid across the floor, to everyone’s horror. We took it out to the kitchen, dusted it off, reappeared trying to look ‘normal’ about it, and it was delicious anyway. Another year, my cleaning person at the time decided that the turkey was in the way in the refrigerator and put it in the freezer without telling me, and when I went downstairs at six in the morning to start cooking it, it was frozen solid, like a boulder, and I had to run around buying enough chickens to feed my family. We skipped the turkey that year. So from a culinary standpoint, we’ve had our comic moments around Thanksgiving).

Nothing heals the heart like gratitude, although some years it is hard to be grateful. And in some ways, this has been a hard year. Holidays always accentuate one’s losses, and the absence of my late son Nick for many years now, and the loss of my late ex-husband and children’s father who died a year and a half ago, will be felt more acutely on the holiday. And a dear friend who joined us every year for Thanksgiving and added to the merriment also passed away a year ago, and we will miss her too. But I think the secret of a good Thanksgiving is about who you reach out to, and who you try to include, even if they are not your closest friends. If they have nowhere to be on Thanksgiving, no family nearby or none at all, the whole spirit of Thanksgiving is to include them, and to share the blessings on the table and in your heart. And as I said, sometimes it’s challenging. Some years are harder than others. This year, we will still be reverberating from the impact of Hurricane Sandy, and the shock and sadness of one of my daughters losing her home and everything in it that she loved. But we can give thanks that she is alive, and I am deeply grateful for that!!! There have been happy events this year too, another daughter got married in August. And three of my children will be with their in laws, so we will miss them.  But if we try hard, we can find things to be grateful for.

A saying I have always loved, from the Bible, is “God places the solitary in families”. At a time in my life when I was totally alone and desperately lonely, I found that to be true, and would be invited by kind friends at Thanksgiving, and then I wound up with a big family of my own. Thanksgiving is a time when it warms my heart to see my children include friends and invite people who have nowhere to go. We become a family, a community of people, connected by gratitude, as we give thanks. And I know that can be challenging. How do you give thanks when you feel you have lost so much? When everything is going wrong? When your heart is aching, you’ve lost a child or a spouse, or your marriage or relationship is on the rocks? Give thanks for what? There is always something to give thanks for, and be grateful for, however small. I remember once, when my life was at an all-time low, I was so down about all of it, that I couldn’t think of anything to be grateful for, and lowered my eyes, feeling acutely sorry for myself——and then noticed the shoes I was wearing that I actually liked, and whispered to myself “thank you for the nice shoes”. If we can find one thing to be grateful for, it will grow. It’s an exercise I force myself to do at times when I am down in the dumps about my life. I force myself to think of 5 things I am grateful for—–and some days it’s a stretch, although I have 8 great kids I am grateful for, but that’s cheating—I try to think of 5 other things, even if it’s only a warm home and a comfortable bed.

I hope that you will be at a Thanksgiving table this year, with people you love, or the family that you get along with (and that’s not always a sure thing either!! Families sometimes behave badly at holidays, or you are forced to see people you try to avoid the rest of the year). But I hope that this Thanksgiving will be a real one for you, and if it’s not perfect, maybe you will be a blessing to someone else. It is a magic circle that comes around, gratitude softens our hearts and brings us closer together. Reaching out to someone else becomes a chain of life that affects us all.  I hope your turkey is delicious—-even if it turns out to be pizza with 3 good friends. What matters is not what’s on our table, but in our hearts. Turkey and stuffing, mashed potatoes and pumpkin pie are delicious, but better a small meal and a big heart. May your heart be full of thanks on Thanksgiving, your life filled with blessings, and your table with good friends, or people to whom you are a blessing. And may you be able to find 5 things you are grateful for with ease. (And try not to drop the turkey on the floor—-and if you do, no worries. Just go out to the kitchen, pretend you’re Julia Child, dust it off, and bring it back to the table with a smile. No one will ever know). May your Thanksgiving be abundant with blessings this year, and always.

Love, Danielle

In the Wake of Sandy

As happens with major disasters which we read about, the media turn the page. They move on to other stories, other catastrophes or points of interest. We cry over injured children in photos of war zones, or after an explosion, see women mourning their dead, or injured soldiers. We read about earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes, which take over our lives briefly, and then something else comes along, and the media forces us to focus on something else. But the people in the affected areas, and victims of those catastrophes are living with the fallout of the disaster for years. I feel that way about Hurricane Sandy now. As I mentioned before, it hit close to home for us, when one of my daughters lost her home and everything she owns, so I have a front row seat on the tragedies Sandy left in her wake, not just for us, but for so many. Lives lost, homes destroyed, whole neighborhoods impacted, and that won’t recover for a long, long time. For us, the disaster is still our main and only focus, and how to comfort my daughter from her tragic loss. But thank God she is alive!!! Others weren’t as lucky.

I am reminded of many things as I hear the stories close at hand, and was in the affected areas in New York as soon as I could fly in. I am reminded of how soon people who were not affected forget and move on to other things, while the tragedy is still very much alive for those who went through it. How much we all cared about Haiti and Japan, Katrina and the tsunami in Asia, and then our own lives intervene, and the memories fade. Nothing has faded yet for the victims in New York and surrounding States. It was a disaster of epic and historic proportions, said to be the worst natural disaster in the history of the United States.  I was in NY with my daughter, when a snowstorm hit shortly after, pelting New York with sleet, ice and snow and high winds, and the threat of flooding again, and all I could think of was “Oh come on….you’re kidding….this can’t be.” Many people still didn’t have heat, or even water in their homes, or gas in their cars, and it was snowing? Please!!! Give us a break here. Most frightening of all is that because of the changed weather conditions on the planet, a devastating hurricane could happen again. Terrifying.

I heard the heartbreaking stories first hand, and lived them with my daughter. The entire street she lives on severely damaged, with many buildings closed for extensive reconstruction. The heartbreaking hole the police cut in the garage door across the street, trying to save a man trapped in the garage in the floodwaters, and reached him too late. The people you meet in New York who lost their homes and everything they owned. The discomforts, the fear, the terror, the loss. The photos of nearly a third of the city in total darkness, under water and severely damaged, with no power, while the other two thirds of Manhattan appeared totally normal, business as usual as soon as the storm passed, lights burning brightly. And conditions in other neighboring states like New Jersey even more severe.

I was reminded of many things. Other than the actual loss of my late son Nick, one of the sad sidebars of that is that forevermore I know that bad things do happen. Until tragedy strikes you personally, you/we always feel that things will turn out okay. Once you have come face to face with tragedy, you know that that’s not always the case. For the rest of my life, when the phone rings, my heart stops for an instant, terrified of what I might hear. Once you know the worst can happen, it changes your life forever. You no longer have that carefree confidence that nothing bad will really happen. Sometimes it does. And the knowledge of that alters our lives forevermore. This flood is that way too. If the worst can happen—-could it happen again? We all know now that it could.

This reminds me too of the aftermath of 9/11, when our lives were forever changed too. Travel is complicated and unnerving now, we will never again feel completely secure on our own turf or in the air. People who survived Hurricane Sandy know now that their homes are not completely safe, and they are not entirely safe from natural disaster. If a city like New York can be that hard hit, imagine what would happen in smaller cities or rural areas. Or an earthquake in California. We no longer feel carefree and safe and we aren’t.

I am reminded of another phenomenon too. Many years ago, I wrote a book about the American-born people of Japanese origin who were put in internment camps in the West after Pearl Harbor. The rest of the country treated them as American citizens, but in many Western States they were treated like alien spies and locked up in camps for several years. It’s a shocking piece of American history, and the stories around it were deeply touching. My father married a wonderful Japanese lady when I was young, and she wound up in one of those camps as a young girl. I tried to interview several people about it for a book, and what I found was that no one would talk. Everyone’s answer to my queries was “it was fine”. And reading the research and historical accounts about it, it was anything but fine, and a severe hardship for the internees in what amounted to prison camps (and all of their homes, businesses and belonging were confiscated. They were interned within 72 hours). But no one would say a word about it, even my stepmother who also just said “it was fine”. And the sense that I got in my brief unproductive conversations with the people who had been in those camps was that they had a deep sense of shame about it. Almost as though it had been a disgrace and they had done something wrong, which they hadn’t. The people in those camps were for the most part American born, and citizens, suddenly treated like enemy aliens because their origins were Japanese. Families and children were herded into those camps and kept locked up for many years. But I sensed the strong embarrassment they all had about it. I was going to call the book “Silent Shame” because of it, but in the end I called it “Silent Honor” because they were such proud, brave, peaceful honorable people and even later bore no malice for how they were treated. I am finding the same kind of embarrassment now among the survivors of Sandy. They did nothing wrong, there is no guilt here, but I find people loath to talk about it, even when they lost everything. There seems to be a kind of shame about it, maybe it’s survivor guilt, but the most severely affected victims seem to be carrying that burden as well.

The brutal effects of Sandy are still being felt, and will be for a long time. There will be blessings here, lives changed, good things that come after bad, which is often the way life works. But the eye of the grief storm is still here, facing the loss, repairing the damage, bad news from insurance companies that don’t cover floods. No one expected a storm or damage of this magnitude in New York, New Jersey, or the other states it affected. The newspapers have moved on to the elections, to other events, and the restoration process will be long, not only structurally, but in the hearts of those who lost so much, or lost people they loved.  This is a deep wound that will take a long time to heal, individually and collectively. My heart goes out to all of those who were touched by Hurricane Sandy.

I send you all my love, Danielle

Stand Up!!

Hi Everyone,

My son described an amazing moment to me recently, and introduced me to a new organization that I had not previously heard of. But I want to find out lots more about them now. I’m already impressed by what I know.

At the first night of the World Series, on the way in, before the game, everyone was handed a sign (I think it looked like a paddle) as they came in. The organization that provided it was called ‘Stand Up To Cancer”, and there was a space where you could write in the name of someone you know who has been affected by the disease.  And the plan was for all the people who had someone’s name to write in, to hold up their signs at the end of the fifth inning—-both fans and players alike.  Apparently, the plan went off seamlessly, concerned fans and players held up their signs, and my son sent me a photograph of him holding up his sign with his Dad’s name on it—–whom we lost to leukemia 20 months ago. The photo of my son was so touching, with thousands of other similar fans behind him, holding up their signs, the message behind it so powerful, and the moment so poignant, that I had tears rolling down my face just looking at the photo of him holding his sign. And there was his Dad’s name, proudly on the sign for all to see. He wrote his father’s full name, not just ‘Dad”.

What an extraordinary organization, and what a powerful movement for awareness, and what an incredibly moving way to either honor those we know who are struggling, or pay tribute so publicly to those we have lost to that disease. Even in the photograph, I could sense the solidarity and strength of those thousands of people holding up their signs. What a beautiful thing to do.

I’ve heard since that Stand Up To Cancer is an impressive organization and I intend to find out more about it. Awareness is so important, about all our important issues. I’ve tried to address it for years in the field of mental illness, through the foundation I established in the name of my late son Nick, and the book I wrote about him—-trying to take away the secrecy that surrounds mental illness, and the embarrassment family members sometimes feel about it. Public awareness allows people to stand up and be open about what they’re going through, which not only helps them, but others going through exactly the same thing. Isolation, silence and secrecy make everything so much worse.  And I’ve done the same recently with a non-fiction book about the plight of the homeless. The book is came out on October 30th, and is called “A Gift of Hope”, and talks about my eleven years of working on the streets with the homeless.

There are so many things that we can and should stand up for, tragedies, ills in our society, challenges we all face, terrible wrongs that have been committed against others, abuses of all kinds.  Cancer has touched so many lives, and long ago it was considered a dark secret that no one talked about, as though it were some kind of crime. And how wonderful of Stand Up To Cancer to allow/encourage thousands of people to stand up and hold up a sign for those they love who have been touched by the disease. Wow!!! Bravo!! I salute them, and my heart goes out to everyone who held up signs at the game that night. And once again, I was so proud of my son, holding up his sign, in tribute to his Dad.  And I’m sure his Dad was proud of him too!!!!

Love, Danielle