Cheryl Krauter on The Odyssey of Ashes: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and Letting Go

In this interview, Cheryl Krauter talks to Alexander “The Engineer” Lim, host of AuthorStory by alvinwriter.com, about her book, Odyssey of Ashes: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and Letting Go.

“Honor your journey.” ~Cheryl Krauter

In the four years since Cheryl’s last interview on AuthorStory, Cheryl has been working with cancer patients and therapists, as well as written at least two books (one of which is Odyssey of Ashes) and during the pandemic she has been working on the distress that has afflicted people due to that. Her first AuthorStory interview had actually taken place a year after the passing of her husband, John, who was, in Cheryl’s words, a real estate broker who became a jewelry maker and an “impatient” artist. He was also an expert fly-fisher who, for nine years, donated his time and effort to a fishing charity which supported women who were recovering from cancer - a charity from which Cheryl had won an opportunity to spend time on a guided fishing trip while she was so recovering.

John’s passing was sudden and unexpected for, as Cheryl remarked, he had no known pre-existing conditions and died within five minutes, in the early morning hours. Some time before this, John’s name had been entered in the raffle the fishing charity used to select those who would spend some time with the charity’s members and volunteers, and it was some five months after his passing that his name was drawn - an event that was so unexpected that the woman (who was John’s friend) who drew John’s name needed to ask someone else to read out his name, to confirm the draw. Cheryl went on the trip on her own, after which, according to John’s wishes, she then scattered his ashes by a river.

One of Cheryl’s fears, while writing Odyssey of Ashes, was talking about living in essentially two parallel worlds, with one being the normal, everyday world and the other being a timeless one where one comes to terms with grief that stems from the loss of a loved one. Cheryl believes that living in what are essentially two parallel realities is common, particularly in cases when the loved one has passed away suddenly, as people believe in the story that one passes away after a full and self-aware life - something which “doesn’t happen that much,” Cheryl notes. From her experience, and the experiences of those she has worked with, such an experience is a “suspended state” of reality. Cheryl’s meditation practice helped stabilize her through this experience.

“People feel like it’s crazy,” Cheryl remarks of other people’s reluctance to speak of their experiences, adding that people are afraid to experience the dual reality previously mentioned and don’t want others to know that they are “losing track” of their day-to-day lives, that they fear falling into “a pit” that they won’t be able to get out of. Cheryl notes that it’s an odd feeling for someone in such grief to realize that life does go on, adding that such is part of the process of grieving.

For Cheryl, the day when she scattered John’s ashes was probably one of the most intense parts of her grieving process, as she did so during one of the worst storms in that area’s history, and her spirits were lifted when, the following evening, she saw the aurora borealis in the sky.

Cheryl remarks that there are a lot of books on the process of dying, but there is little written about the trauma of a sudden death, and she believes that avoidance of this subject is due to such highlighting the “ephemeral” quality of people’s lives. Cheryl also notes that, although she has more or less come to terms with her grief, she still experiences such grief, at a less “acute” intensity, every now and then. She notes that the myth that people get over grief creates pressure in people to essentially be better, remarking that one never knows when memories and emotions related to the passing of a loved one will come up. “I have no idea what ‘normal’ is, anymore,” Cheryl remarks about the experiences in her life, adding that, once the grief is managed, one then creates whatever life is now present.

Cheryl adds that the loved one lost “is always with you,” and that, while “the loss never ends,” they are with one “in a different way.” Cheryl notes that, in her experience, she felt John around for a certain period of time, after which she no longer did, which is part of the process of letting go. She also notes that there are different levels of parting, which is part of the process - something which she feels important for people to undergo and, most importantly, take the time to undergo it.

Cheryl hopes that the readers of Odyssey of Ashes get a sense of permission to explore, discover and talk about all the realities that they are experiencing. She also hopes the book gives a sense of the necessary balance in one’s life, and also notes that, regardless of the events that knock people over, people can get up and find a way to create their lives and “shine again.”

Purchase from Amazon: Odyssey of Ashes: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and Letting Go by Cheryl Krauter

Cheryl Krauter AuthorStory previous interview links

YouTube 

Blog 

Videos Blog 

Monica Burch on Her Children's Book, Candma Goes to Heaven, a Story about Grief and Loss

In this interview, Monica Burch talks to Alexander “The Engineer” Lim, host of AuthorStory by alvinwriter.com, about her book, Candma Goes to Heaven.



“It’s okay to be upset.” ~Monica Burch

In the three years since Monica has last been on AuthorStory, she has continued working with children on robotics and STEM. She is also presently a self-professed “empty nester,” as one of her two sons is presently taking up engineering and the other has graduated and is presently working. 

Candma Goes to Heaven began when the grandmother - the mother of her husband - her older son, then two, passed away. Monica began the book at that time, one which essentially describes the approach she used to explain to her son about his grandmother’s death, but it was only after some two decades and several revisions that she finally published it. Along the way, she also dealt with some children whose loved ones had passed away, and it was in those times when she figured she needed to publish the book, as it would help out those who had experienced such a loss.

Finding an illustrator proved to be challenging. Monica contacted four different illustrators before finally settling on Emily Zeiroth, remarking that she wanted her characters to be African-American to reflect her heritage, and that she also had particular ideas of how particular people to appear. Getting the character of Candma was particularly important to Monica, and it wasn’t until she worked with Emily, whom she contacted through Upwork, that an illustrator finally produced what Monica had in mind. Monica notes that all of her correspondence and meetings with all of the illustrators she contacted were online, and it was after Emily produced the illustration that would appear on the book’s cover page that Monica hired her.

Monica did research for the book, to make sure she did justice to the subject, and the additional experiences she had over the decades also made her tweak the book to make it more reflective of what she had learned. What surprised her was that parents had a hard time talking to kids about death, dying and what had happened, with the children not even attending the funeral of a loved one.

It’s important for Monica to let her children know how she and her husband feel about the loss of a loved one, as doing so tells the child that it’s okay to be upset by the loss, as the death of a loved one is part of life. Letting children know and understand all that was something that Monica felt strongly about, and given the resistance some parents have about the subject, Monica remarks that Candma Goes to Heaven is a book talks about to parents first, before the parents introduce it to their children. That said, she doesn’t want to interfere with how parents introduce the subject of death to their children, citing her own background where “passed away” is used as a euphemism for someone dying, as well as pointing out that such a euphemism would confuse children.

Monica believes that it is better for a child to be told what happens so that he or she can deal with it, as every last person is eventually going to die and that a child’s loved one is eventually going to die while the child is still alive. She remarks that she had read some children’s books where the deaths involved weren’t family or where the family involved wasn’t human, and that she wanted her book to be as realistic as possible.

For parents, Monica opines that they should find a place where everyone is comfortable, and then talk about something good about the person first off. Once that is done, the child can then be told what happened, and then let the child know how the parent feels about the situation, to let the child know that it’s okay to be upset. To a child, Monica would say that it’s okay to be upset, and that the person who passed away loved them and that it’s okay to always remember that. “It’s something that you have to talk about, and you want to still remember the person,” she muses, adding that children will have memories and feelings about that person who passed, memories and feelings which need to be acknowledged. She also remarks that she and her family mention things about people who have already passed on as a way of helping to deal with the loss, giving the example of how she speaks about her father and how her boys likewise speak about him.

In addition to working on some technical books, Monica is also working on a story where Candma and Alex, the main protagonist of Candma Goes to Heaven, go to church, as well as two more sequels of Speedy’s Strength. 

Purchase from Amazon: 
Candma Goes to Heaven by Monica Burch 

Speedy’s Strength interview on YouTube

Speedy's Strength interview recap

Inside ROBOTIX interview on YouTube 

Inside ROBOTIX interview recap

Kris Francoeur on Grief, Garlic and Gratitude and Returning to Hope and Joy from a Shattered Life - Sam's Love Story

In this interview, Kris Francoeur (a.k.a. Anna Belle Rose) talks to Alexander “The Engineer” Lim, host of AuthorStory by alvinwriter.com, about her book, Of Grief, Garlic and Gratitude: Returning to Hope and Joy from a Shattered Life - Sam’s Love Story.



“Remember the person that you’ve lost, remember what it was that they loved most, and find a way to celebrate that.” ~Kris Francoeur

Kris began writing the material for her book within days of the death of her son, Sam, by posting things online which she was grateful for, as these enabled “the darkness of the grief” to lift somewhat. It was after writing this for a few months that people began saying that her posts on gratitude were resonating with them and helping them look at their own lives. She also received suggestions about her putting these into a book, but it still took around two years before she finally decided to do so.

According to Kris, Sam was a “beacon of light and love,” something which she only fully realized after his death, when Sam’s friends and acquaintances, who had met Sam at some point in their lives, would come over and commiserate with the family. As a child, Sam would want to talk to complete strangers, and even later on, when he struggled with bipolar disorder and addiction, he would see everyone as “worthy of love” and would talk to total strangers. Sam, Kris notes, was “such a character and had such energy” that, after he died, she felt a “gaping hole” with his loss.

Sam began smoking marijuana at the age of 14, initially recreationally, but he soon found that marijuana enabled him to control the extremes of his bipolar disorder condition. This, however, became an outright addiction to prescription drugs and opiates. Kris remarks that Vermont had “absolutely been destroyed” by the opioid epidemic, as the state is a transit area for drugs, to the point where Rolling Stone magazine did a cover story on the issue, and while this issue is endlessly brought up in school, Kris notes that teenagers don’t necessarily listen to what adults say.

Kris notes that the grief she and her family experienced after Sam’s death was different from the kind of grief they had experienced before. She also remarks that grief is a process and that, as a psychologist, she thought she knew what the stages were, in the order she had learned them. She found, however, that the stages of grief are different for parents who lose children compared to when children lose parents or a friend losing a friend, noting that she never experienced anger, at least as of the time of this interview.

(The stages of grief, according to Kubler-Ross, are: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression and Acceptance, in that order.)

Kris remarks that, at present, the sadness she feels from Sam’s loss is akin to a callous on one’s foot, in that she has learned to “walk with it.” One of the hardest lessons she had to learn was that she would always miss Sam for the rest of her life, remarking that, at Sam’s service, a woman whom she had known for forty years, and whose son had also died of an opioid overdose some fifteen years previously, hugged her and told her that “it doesn’t get better; it gets different.” The woman’s remark initially angered Kris, but Kris realized that the woman was telling her the truth. For Kris, learning to live with Sam’s death is a part of her life.

Kris acknowledges that her family isn’t religious and also didn’t want to travel such paths as drinking or taking medication or illegal drugs. Each member of the family went through grief in their own ways, and what was consistent for all of them was being with nature as much as possible, to “do a Sam” by holding true to the things that Sam loved, such as listening to music, being outdoors and being with people. The latter posed a bit of a challenge for Kris and her husband, as they are introverts, but they did so anyway, reaching out to people they didn’t know in the same way Sam used to.

Kris notes that it is easy to think that “everything is bad” whenever something bad - such as the loss of a job or an accident - happens, which colors everything that one then sees and would complain about. Kris admits that it was easy to view the world through this filter after Sam’s death, and she used to recognize, every day, the wonderful gifts that she had received, and then post online the things that she was grateful for. This helped her out greatly, particularly during the first year after Sam’s death, as she would feel peace and love - something that helped her realize that the world wasn’t the horrible place that she could so easily see it to be. Kris points out that, as she has traveled the path of “conscious and deliberate gratitude,” she has learned that being grateful for at least 30 days changes the brain’s chemistry, and can even show as much benefit as antidepressants. She remarks that her heart rate, when she writes about things she is grateful for, is the same as that when she meditates.

Community does play a part in dealing with grief, according to Kris, and she points out that this isn’t commonly the case with other families who have suffered the loss of a member who died from an opioid overdose, as the most common reaction is that other people don’t want to hear about it. Kris admits that the outlook of what Sam’s friends had on such things as energy, life, death and the universe were beyond what hers was, and that they “wrapped around” Kris and her family, showing them how much, to this day, they love Sam and his family. This openness, acceptance and acknowledgement of grief is also what enables Kris and her family to come to terms with grief and manage it in their lives.

To those who are grieving, Kris advises that everyone grieves differently, and so long as one doesn’t harm oneself, the way one grieves isn’t wrong. She also advises that those in grief record their stories, as doing so is a good way to learn about oneself.

Purchase from Amazon: Of Grief, Garlic and Gratitude: Returning to Hope and Joy from a Shattered Life?Sam’s Love Story by Kris Francoeur