Today has been a busy one and it’s barely past breakfast! Here is a link to an interview I did with Anaiah Press. Click it and see if you learn anything about me and my writing you didn’t already know.
Blessings,
Linda
While we’re waiting for Tatia’s Tattoo, my first novel, to be edited and readied for publication, I have some exciting news about my memoir, A Long and Winding Road: A Caregiver’s Tale of Life, Love, and Chaos. Winding Road was released by Anaiah Press, first as an e-book on July 1, 2014 and then in print in January 6, 2015. In honor of three successful years, Anaiah is releasing an anniversary edition with a new cover and fresh edits.
In case it’s been a while since you read it, or if you missed it the first time around, Winding Road is the story of the chaos that happens when four people, two of whom have Alzheimer’s, spend fifty-three days in a four-hundred-square-foot box on wheels. The publisher put a more detailed description on the back cover:
Sometimes, reality really bites. Alzheimer’s has wrapped Mom’s brain into knots; vascular dementia has attacked dad, and instead of carefree retirees, we have become caregivers. Regardless, dreams die hard, and we somehow stumbled into the purchase of a forty-foot motor home. That’s when all four of us set out on this seven-week trek across sixteen U.S. states. Now, Dad stopped up the toilet again; Mom wet her last pair of clean jeans, and David just announced he was hungry. My head is beginning to pound, and I know this isn’t going to be the easygoing retirement we imagined for ourselves.
Linda Brendle takes you on a roller-coaster ride of emotional and spiritual challenges that many families are facing right now. Co-dependency, mental breakdowns, and finding love after divorce are just a few of the issues weaved into this journey of caregiving.
The release date has not yet been announced, but details will be posted as soon as they are available. In the meantime, if you would be interested in participating in a blog tour sometime between July 22 and August 4, CLICK HERE to sign up.
Thank you for all your support, encouragement, and friendship.
Blessings,
Linda
Published in the Rains County Leader on May 24, 2016:
Thomas Wolfe wrote a novel titled “You Can’t Go Home Again” that was published in 1940. I’m not sure I agree with him. Sometimes you can go home, but you may have no idea where you are.
I was born in Merkel, a tiny town in west Texas, and when I was three, we moved to Snyder, a slightly larger small town. When I was seven, we moved to Mesquite, a Dallas suburb which at that time had a population of approximately 1,500 people. I graduated from Mesquite High School (the original one) in 1965 and continued to live there until I was first married in 1967, so when I think of going home, I think of Mesquite.
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Blurb: As a young Christian, Kevin Thorson was a normal, healthy 19-year-old. Music was his life, and he planned to play his guitar and use his talents for God. Abruptly, all seemed to end July 11, 1997.
His mother recalls the words from that dreaded phone call: Pam, you need to sit down… Kevin has been in an accident… paralyzed… ventilator… hospital… She could only comprehend the bits in between those horrifying words. Kevin was lying paralyzed on a ventilator in a foreign country with a broken neck.
Pam Thorson recounts the true story of her family’s nightmare as they struggled to live out their faith in the face of impossible odds. Song of the Night traces the journey of her family to find peace in the midst of so much darkness.
Review: “Mom, I’ve been thinking. I don’t want to do something easy for God. I want to do something hard for Him. I have asked Him to send me to a hard place.”
Shortly after sharing this aspiration with his mother, Kevin Thorson finds himself in a place where life is not just hard but it is impossible to move from the neck down or even to breathe without help. A Song in the Night: One Family’s Journey from Darkness to Dawn is the story of the hard place where Kevin and his loved ones have lived since that day in July when he failed to complete a back flip successfully. It is the heart cry of a mother who will do literally anything to hang on to the fragile life of her son.
Song is also the story of a remarkable family who is willing to restructure not only their home but also their lives to care for a loved one in need. Siblings fight, not for the attention they feel they are missing, but rather for the privilege of learning new skills and using those skills to help their brother. Husband and wife seem to neglect their marriage only to grow closer to each other. Through all the tribulation, the entire family grows closer to God.
In telling her story, Pamela Thorson writes about the faith, the hope, and the love; but she also writes about the doubt, the fear, the exhaustion, the anger, and the despair. Song in the Night is both heartbreaking and uplifting as the reader witnesses a group of people who refuse to give up as they move from darkness to dawn, from tragedy to miracle.
Available at Amazon.com
Author: Pam was born at the Millington Naval Base outside of Memphis, Tennessee, the first child of a Wisconsin navy seaman and a Southern belle. Her early life was marked by many moves around the country as her father pursued a career in broadcasting. After traveling throughout the deep South and the Pacific Northwest, the family finally settled on the Nimiipuu (Nez Perce) reservation in Idaho. Pam met her wonderful husband during college, set her roots down deep along the banks of the Clearwater River, and happily began a home and family.
Pam and Aaron educated all five of their children at home. They began homeschooling in 1982 and graduated their youngest daughter in 2006. Pam and Aaron have been married forty-one years. They have five grown children, two sets of precious in-laws, and two beautiful granddaughters.
Pam has long loved to write. She began writing for the local college newspaper and homeschooling group. Later she authored many devotionals for her church and an article for Evangel. In 2008 she wrote Song in the Night, the true account of her son’s injury in Canada, their fight to keep the doctors from pulling the plug, and the subsequent journey back home. Her second book is due for release by Lighthouse Publishing of the Carolinas in early 2014.
In 2000, Pam became certified as a nurses’ aide to care for their injured son. She and her family have operated a certified family home licensed by the state of Idaho since 2000. In 2011, she completed the practical nurse program at Walla Walla Community College and earned her license as an LPN.
Her conversion to the Lord Jesus Christ in 1975 set her on a journey with her Savior spanning nearly four decades. Her love for and devotion to life has come from this association with her Creator. Pam adores her husband, her family, and friends. She enjoys her beautiful little log home, good coffee, the sound of the river at night, and just about any kind of Christian music.
Visit Pam here:
Also read previous posts about Pam and her work:
Review of Out from the Shadows
Blessings,
Linda
Blessings,
Linda
A LONG AND WINDING ROAD: A Caregiver’s Tale of Life, Love, and Chaos
Available in ebook.
B&N // Kobo // iTunes // Amazon // Smashwords // Google Play
My first marriage ended in 1990 after twenty-three years. I was single again for ten years before the Lord brought David and me together. I learned a lot during those ten years including the fact that dating has changed a lot since I was a teenager.
Blessings,
Linda
A LONG AND WINDING ROAD: A Caregiver’s Tale of Life, Love, and Chaos
Available in ebook.
B&N // Kobo // iTunes // Amazon // Smashwords // Google Play
Many caregivers have experienced a time when their loved one wanted to go “home,” even though they were already in their place of residence. My understanding is that, because of their slide away from reality, people with Alzheimer’s and dementia always feel upset and frightened due to lack of understanding and loss of control. When they say they want to go home, they are seeking a place of familiarity and comfort, somewhere they can feel safe. As caregivers, we cannot take away their feelings of fear and displacement, but we can do our best to provide a stable environment for them and to make them feel as safe as possible wherever they are.
Blessings,
Linda
A LONG AND WINDING ROAD: A Caregiver’s Tale of Life, Love, and Chaos
