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Healing Through Fiction

Julie Elizabeth Powell (pen)

In 1982, my daughter, Samantha, was born with transposition of the main arteries to the heart in addition to two holes and a blocked valve. When she was 8 months old, she had corrective surgery at Great Ormond Street Hospital for Sick Children, London. All seemed well until the 26th November, 1984 when her heart stopped and she died for the first time.

Unfortunately, doctors resuscitated too long and too late leaving Samantha severely brain damaged.

This meant that she no longer knew me or in fact anything of her life before. She had been wiped clean; her essence vanished, leaving her a suffering, twisted blind shell, which only became worse for her during the next 17 years until she died a second time on 26 December, 2001 at the age of 19.

What this meant for me is probably quite obvious – I’d lost my daughter, and yet her body existed, in limbo, leaving me helpless to do anything except watch her wither away and suffer agonies.

I had to make many unpleasant decisions – all of which can be read in my account, called Slings & Arrows. It is brutally honest and may prompt some to point accusing fingers; however, I did my best under such terrible circumstances.

During that waiting time, I had a question, one that haunted me because although Samantha ‘existed’, what made her who she had been had gone. But where, I asked? Where had my daughter gone?

So on one of those forever sleepless nights, I thought, maybe just maybe...so I created a world and went in search of her.

Gone is the result. It is a unique fantasy, one which explores other dimensions and is one answer to that question. It tackles the host of tangled emotions, where Charley must make decisions of life and love and whether or not to prolong the agonies. It is filled with adventure, magic, mystery, questions, answers, decisions and challenges.

Gone though is about hope. Yes, it’s about loss and grief and love and anger and helplessness...but hope rings loudly – as, I think, does humour, for without that, life is an ever mountainous chore.

Writing both books did heal me in some ways, although I think I am forever broken. Strangely, I could not write Slings & Arrows until after Samantha’s second death. But Gone had to be written as soon as the idea popped into my head.

I think I found her and hope that Avalon is there waiting for me, with Samantha smiling in the wings.

***

I need your support in memory of my daughter, Samantha: https://www.thunderclap.it/projects/1...

To mark the 30th anniversary of my daughter, Samantha's, first death (her second 17 years later), Thunderclap has agreed to help if I can gather support. If people would like to read Slings & Arrows and Gone (omnibus edition), I am willing to give away mobi copies - reviews are optional but appreciated.

Of course if anyone wishes to buy it...

Slings & Arrows and Gone Omnibus Edition: http://viewbook.at/B007OA1S3M

Here is the link to support me and this book:

https://www.thunderclap.it/projects/1...

Thank you.