This year, I did a lot of writing. Much more so than usual. It didn’t seem unnatural to me, though. I keep a regular blog to help authors navigate the New Rules of publishing, and I wrote a column for EdTech Times to help educators produce good content for their classrooms and beyond. But when friends say to me, “Why are you writing so much lately?,” I knew that my output had noticeably increased. There’s a good reason why.
The short answer? This is my way of honoring the memory of my parents.
My father passed away in July, 2012. His illness was aggressive, a form of liver cancer that was determined to outrun the treatments. As a family, we lost our center. My dad was central to our lives, especially since we lost my mom in 2007 to breast cancer. She fought it for 3 years, with the grace and strength that you read about but don’t fully believe.
Both of them died too young, well before they were ready.
Here’s what they taught me, in the form of an epiphany I had at my father’s wake. My father was a mainstay in his community; he worked for the Town of East Greenwich (RI) for 32 years, and when he “retired,” he served on the Town Council for 8 years. Everyone in the town knew him, and my sibs and I always joked that a quick trip to the grocery store would take an hour. Everyone stopped him to talk.
Even though we knew the impact that my dad had on the community, we were still surprised and overwhelmed that over 900 people showed up to pay their respects. They had to close down Main Street to accommodate the crowd. Each person approached my sibs and me with condolences and an individual story about my dad. How he made a difference to each of their lives.
My dad would have thought nothing of this. He would have said that he was doing his job. Sharing his knowledge, helping people with issues that were important to them.
The gift to me was that I could not have seen this while he was here. At least not as clearly. It hit me in a flash.
I realized that my mom was the same way. She was an R.N. her whole life, and like my dad, she did her job the right way. She gave of her heart in caring for her patients, when I’m sure that it would have been a lot easier to build emotional walls. I remember her coming home from her shift in tears because she lost a patient that night, or one of her patients was struggling immeasurably. The price of caring.
She would say that she got as much out of her patients as they did from her care, though. She fed on their energy. It sustained her. Even during her protracted illness, when she was weak and sick from chemo—she worked. She had to; it was the source of her energy.
I cherish these realizations about my parents. Their lives were about giving, each in their own way. I saw that you could do little things to make a big difference in people’s lives.
Now, this serves as the source of my inspiration. I have to do it in my own style, so I write. I share the expertise that I have from my years of helping authors realize their ideas. I can’t do what my mom did with her patients, and I can’t do what my dad did for his local community. I have to do it in my own way, with the things that I know best.
I am dedicating the Good Content Series to my father. He would have been 71 today. His gift to me, delivered a few days after his passing, was the inspiration to make a small difference to someone every day.
In loving memory, with enduring appreciation:
Henry V. Boezi, 12/30/42—7/21/12
Teresa S. Boezi, 8/3/46—10/25/07