The Farewell

I accomplished a goal that has been on my goal list since… well, forever. I wrote a book.

But, this is not the book I would have written if I’d had a choice. Perhaps I should have clarified when writing my goal list. It should have read: write a book whose subject is not illness or write a book that doesn’t include personal heartache.

I didn’t write my book to satisfy a long-time dream, although it’s ironic it worked out that way. I wrote it as therapy. I needed to catalog the events of our lives in 2019 in order to process them. I also wanted to document our story so that my children could someday look upon it with adult eyes and make sense of it, too.

Now I see our life experience neatly packaged into a 6x9 rectangle. Surprisingly, the packaging itself was the most agonizing part of the book-writing process.

For the author, the title and book cover are the final pieces of the process. The farewell. For the readers, though, the packaging is the first thing they see. If done right, these elements cue the book’s story line and help people decide if it’s something they want to spend time with.

The process of deciding on a cover reminded me that I didn’t want my book to be minimized to a health trauma. As I looked at possible cover images, I steered away from anything that immediately associated my book with a health story. I wanted it to be beautiful… watercolor smudges, the rings of coffee stains artistically arranged on the page, or abstract mountains. But I hit my head against the wall every time. An abstract cover wouldn’t help the reader. It would only make me feel better.

I journaled on the literal steps I had taken to bring myself back to Chris’ hospital room, over and over again. I wrote: I stood, walked through the hall, glanced at the nurse’s desk, crossed the threshold of Chris’ hospital room, pulled back the privacy curtain… wait.

That sound. [My stomach lurched.] The same metallic ripping sound a shower curtain makes when drawn from one side of the rod to the other.

Privacy curtain.

I cried for an hour as I searched through images of privacy curtains. These photos triggered some lasting trauma stored in my memory. I remembered the privacy curtain being opened (when I wanted it closed), and I remembered it being closed (when I wanted it open). Either way, it was a constant reminder that there was no real privacy. But privacy wasn’t what we needed. We needed help.

Sometimes accepting help means shifting privacy lines.

The cover design I chose for my book—a hospital room door and privacy curtain—signals to the reader that the setting of the book is a hospital. Metaphorically, it says this book pulls back the privacy curtain of our lives and shares the other side of us… our intimate journey.

I didn’t want to commit to a book cover until I absolutely fell in love. But love isn’t always at first sight. More often, it is acquired, ripening with time and familiarity. In some ways, I love this cover. And in some ways, I hate it. But it is an honest portrayal of what’s inside, and that’s a genuine offering.

There are two lives to every book—its life with the author and its life with the reader. This book and I have spent our life together. Now it is time to let it go.

While I didn’t want to write a book about illness or heartache, my book is as much about recovery and growth as it is disease and pain. Maybe accomplishment comes with a caveat. Perhaps the things we are most proud of include an upheaving. A disruption. A tilling of the soil in preparation for new life.

Thank you for sharing this journey with me. This raw, ugly, beautiful journey.