Hard Times and the Nature of Delays

A lot has happened this summer in my circle of family and friends and most has been of the tragic nature.

June 30th, my mother was in a tractor accident where she was run over by the tractor and not found for 5 hours.

My poor, sweet Mama’s leg
Can’t you see how wonderful my Mama is?

She had emergency surgery the next day to fix her broken femur. She has only been home a total of 3 days since because of complications due to the injuries suffered from the accident. That one has had me in prayer so many times that I’m sure God began to weary of my cries for help.

In July, a young woman about to marry our nephew in September lost her mother unexpectedly. There is another very disturbing situation that is getting worse with my husband’s family that I can’t go into.

Also in July, our beloved Serenity became ill and went through many difficult and heartbreaking things before succumbing to her illness on August 16th.

One of my last pictures of my sweet girl

 

Serenity getting ready for an ultrasound on her cancer
Sleepy younger days
One year old. I got 9 more with her.

I had never heard that dogs could get breast cancer but she did. And it came on fast and hard. One day she was fine, a month later, we were burying her at my parents’ home with utterly broken hearts.

That one on its own would have been enough. Her daughter, Sunny, is mourning as much as we are.

Serenity looking at Sunny like she’s a nut. (she is)

We have never been blessed with human children despite years of trying. Because of that, our furry children have taken all the love we have to give. It’s made the transition from having 3 to 2 all that much harder.

In the positive…in the last three months, we have been blessed with 2 new baby nephews that are healthy and beautiful (one the day after we lost Serenity)! In our season of loss, there have been blessings that have been the light to keep the shadows from being too terribly dark.

Jack!
Lukas!

If any of you do creative things, you understand how crushing and creativity-sucking this kind of thing can be. Because of that, there have been delays on my work. My deadlines have become less of a brick wall that is unmovable and more of a marshmallow that can be shoved around much more easily.

You may wonder why I would share this with you all. The answer is easy. My latest novel, Lightning: The Book of Luke and Gina, was supposed to release in August. As you can see, it’s the end of August and no release happened. It’s now looking like mid-late October. Life got in the way of fiction.

And there is nothing wrong with that. Priorities should always be family and people.

For all of you sitting on pins and needles waiting for Lighting to strike, it’s coming and it’s a lot of fun! So, hopefully, you’ll feel it was worth the bit longer wait than we had planned.

Give love to your loved ones of ALL varieties today. Live like that and you’ll have no regrets!