Elizabeth Drakes's Site

Fantasy Romance

sadness

The Worst Kind of News

by

We received the worst kind of news.

What we thought was a sinus infection wasn’t. Our kitty has malignant cancer. Inoperable. Untreatable.

He will be five in December. He has grown up with my daughters. Made them laugh. Frustrated them. Been a part of the family.

I can’t believe we don’t have more time with him. He’s still so kitten-like in so many ways. Even now, he plays with his foil balls when he as the energy.

By the time you read this, he may well be gone. They have given us a week to six months for him, but I can already see the decline.

After losing our last cat, I didn’t want to get close again. Didn’t want to go through this again. I kept telling myself and my husband it was his cat. He was the one that got him, it was his cat.

But we both knew the truth as the cat curled up on my lap night after night. And denying it hasn’t helped lessen the pain at all.

I sit with him flopped across me, as he loves to do, with my laptop beside me. Wishing we had more time. Wishing it didn’t hurt so much. Wishing for answers that will never come.

Going Home

by

Well, not home. Not really.

It was my grandmother’s 90th birthday, and we drove almost seven hours to rural Ohio to celebrate with her.
hand-141669_640
It’s strange coming back to see her. And, if I’m totally honest, depressing.
Almost all of my mom’s family lives in this area, and when I was a kid, I desperately wished we lived there, too. All my aunts and uncles lived there. My cousins. My grandparents. They saw each other all the time, whereas I got to seem them a couple of times a year. I was sad and jealous.
I didn’t understand that my mother had joined the military to escape. She had a lot of very good reasons to leave, reasons that eventually included daughters of her own.
When I go back now, nothing seems like the world I wanted to join. Yes, my kids are drinking out of the same cups I used when I was a kid. My grandmother has the same rose-printed plates. Even the same wood paneling is in her house. But that’s where it ends.
When I was a kid, manufacturing was strong where she lives. Everyone had jobs, nice houses, and newer cars. We used to walk downtown for ice cream or to visit the Five and Ten.
Now, most of the store fronts are empty. Many of the beautiful old homes have been sub-divided into apartments. Others are in a sad state of repair. Piles of junk sit in yards further outside of the small town, especially old cars and boats. Paint is peeling. Front steps rotting. Out buildings collapsed.
Then there are the trailer parks. Unless you’ve seen rural poverty, you don’t know what I’m talking about. Think about a 1950s RV set-up on blocks. Old. Rusted. Windows boarded in places. Cinder blocks for steps. Now imagine twenty of them clustered together. A few miles away, another trailer “park”. Now imagine watching a little six-year-old boy with light blonde hair and a navy jacket struggling to open the rickety door as he balances on a part of the steps still intact.
caravans-874549_640
Why are things so bad now?
It’s a story told all over the Midwest. Factories that once employed entire towns are gone, and there are no new manufacturing jobs to replace them. Whenever we visit, another of my cousins have been laid off and is trying to find a job. The next job they get always pay less than the one they had before.
The jobs still remaining that pay more than minimum wage all seem to be in the medical field or other services needed by the elderly and retired. Especially in-home nursing. Few out there can afford assisted living even if they are no longer completely self-sufficient.
But those jobs tend to require degrees, and the ones that don’t require degrees pay even less than the few remaining factory jobs.
Doctors in the area live in mansions situated on sprawling lands. Even nurses do well. But I learned from my cousin that being a pharmacy tech pays less than working for Whirlpool. I can understand the growing fear and resentment as they scrape together to get by while a newcomer to the area is building a heated outbuilding larger than their homes to store his three boats.
boat-828659_640
Even the skilled aren’t immune.
My uncle recently closed his business after it had been around for over fifty years. He used to sell and repair appliances like washers and dryers. He started as an apprentice when he was a teenager, and when the owner retired, he sold the business to my uncle.
My uncle did great at first. But then Lowes and Home Depot moved into the area, and he simply couldn’t compete with them on price. Eventually, he closed the Main Street shop and focused on repair.
But with how cheap appliances were becoming, more people just replaced broken ones rather than repairing them. So, he had to start letting the technicians that worked for him go. Then his secretary.
checkmate-1511866_640
Finally, he closed his business and took a job as an electrical inspector for the county. It sucks. After more than thirty years of working for himself, he couldn’t make a living at it anymore. Thank goodness he’s a master electrician and was able to get other work.
Yeah, they’re my family and I’m biased, but these aren’t dumb people. Or lazy people. Most of them work damn hard. They simply have no way forward. They’re trying to eek out a living without giving up family, friends, and community. They’re trying to find a way forward after manufacturing was gutted from the Rust Belt.
And there is no safety net for them. No retraining for them. No real hope for things to ever improve.
College is a dream. Something rich kids do. Something they wish they could give their kids. But when most families of four earn less than $40k a year, even state school is out of reach.
Some young men and women join the military. It’s a way out, a job, and it promises to teach them real skills. Two of my cousins tried to join, but one failed the physical and the other hurt his knee to the point it required surgery two weeks before boot camp.
soldier-870399_640
Still, I’m amazed how many of them have friends that joined the military, and how many of them know someone that gave their life. You see pro-veteran signs, slogans, and even graffiti everywhere. Makes me wonder if this is why.
It’s people like this that voted for our current president. They’re the ones that propelled him to victory. People who felt lost and left behind. People who want the family and community my grandfather had. Or, what they think he had. They want the jobs back. They want hope.
If you haven’t driven through rural Ohio, it’s hard to understand. If you have, you may still not agree with their choices, but you can understand them. I hope our president doesn’t disappoint them.
How about you? Does your family live near you? Or are they far away? Did you grow up with a large family and love it, or maybe you had a small family and loved that? Ever been through rural Ohio?

Saying Goodbye

by

Saying goodbye is hard. Really hard. The longer you’ve known someone, usually, the harder it is to say goodbye.

As illustrated by the Harry Potter cast.

bye2

Same is true for me when I finish a story. Whether a rewrite or a first draft, there’s a bit of sorrow that casts its shadow on the accomplishment.

So, yes, I finished the most recent edit of “Crowned Prince” that I started on October 24th. It took me eleven weeks to finish, and in that time, I was able to dedicate some pretty serious hours to the revision process. Interesting, as the first draft only took me eight weeks to write.

On this rewrite alone, I’ve traveled with these character for almost a quarter of a year. I’ve spent much of my free-time with them and many hours thinking about them. Working through their foibles, their defeats, and their victories. Seeing them change and grow. Falling in love with them along the way.

As I reread the ending for the eleventh time last night before finally sending it off to my beta readers, I knew I was going to miss these characters. Finally, at long last, they had each other and their happily-ever-after. They’d earned it, they knew what I cost, and they were both willing to fight to keep it.

I lingered with them a while, and then I closed the file and cracked open the novel I finished in October. Best way to beat the sadness of saying goodbye to one set of characters is to become invested in the next set.

unnamed-11

Years ago, when I finished writing my first book (that the Doubt Demon eventually stole), I actually cried when I was done. I had put over two years into the story, and I never thought I’d be able to write another. Took me a lot longer back then to realize I had more than one story in me. Once I realized I could write more than one book, and started work on the new one, I felt much better. Completing it made me feel better yet. (Yeah, Doubt Demon got that one, too).

Demon

I’m not a big fan of book series that feature the same characters as the “leads” over and over, but I do love series that let me go back to the world the author created. Especially if I get a glimpse of some old favorites living their happily-ever-after while becoming invested in new characters.

Perhaps this is why all three books I’ve written so far stand alone, but they’re all in the same world. While you may never “see” the characters from the previous novels “on screen”, you hear the new characters reference them as appropriate. It gives me a little hug of feeling, reminding me I didn’t really say goodbye. I just said until later.

 

How about you? Ever feel sad when you come to the end of a book, whether reading it or writing it? If so, how do you overcome the sadness? Do you like series that feature the same characters? Same world(s)? Why or why not?