Mitzi Flyte

It’s been almost a month since my last blog. In that month my daughter lost her father, after an initially short illness.

After a death is when the real work begins and she met it head on. Through her sadness, she took care of everything, from the memorial service (she wrote the remarks) to cleaning out his apartment. She did it all. I helped a little, as did her cousin and his girlfriend. But Heather did it all.

Although her father and I had been divorced for more than thirty years, I was deeply saddened by his passing. Over the last ten years he and Heather had developed (with a lot of work on her part) a very good father-daughter relationship. I’m sad that she will no longer have that in her life. But she will have the memories.

The first time I lost the man I loved twenty-five years ago, I wrote in a journal. This time I wrote, but mostly on Facebook, not even here.

And in the middle of everything, November arrived and many writers know that with November comes National Novel Writing Month. Once again I joined in the NaNo madness. And my new story grew out of the time I spent in ICU with Heather’s dad.

Will this NaNo story go anywhere? Who knows?

I’m just hoping to get to the 50K mark this month and to have something to revise.

And I’m reminded of what a writer friend once said, “All is grist for the mill.”

All is grist for the writing mill.