Independence – My Corner

The Wheels Are Turning at the Seeing Eye #FridayFinds #Reblogs #Inspiration

After losing her guide dog six weeks ago, fellow author and blogger Mary Hiland is finally ready for another one. In this post, she explains the first steps in applying for a guide dog. You can check out my reviews of her books

here and here. Enjoy!

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My darling Dora died of cancer six weeks ago. While there are times that something sets me off, a word, a song, or just the overbearing feeling of loneliness, and I weep, even sob, in self-indulgent sadness, I know that sooner or later, I must replace her with a new Seeing Eye ® dog. I hate using the word replace, because a dog like Dora cannot be replaced. Yet, I can’t go on needing to hold the arm of a kind person to go anywhere outside my home, and I’m terrible at using a white cane. It’s time to go back to the Seeing Eye to train with a new dog to regain my independence.

Read the full post on Seeing It My Way.

A Teenager Wants Independence #It’sSix-Sentence-“Story-Thursday-Link-Up

“Look, Natalie,” I told my daughter. “We made a deal last summer when your grades were so low, and you wanted to learn to drive then. Your mother and I told you that once your grades went up, we could get you a learner’s permit, and I’d teach you. Now, it looks like your grades are improving. So, maybe next summer, we can do that. It’s too dangerous to learn to drive in the snow, and it looks like we’re getting an early winter…”

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The above is an excerpt from my forthcoming novel, Why Grandma Doesn’t Know Me, due out soon from DLD Books. Thanks to Girlie on the Edge for inspiring this with her six-sentence-story prompt for this week. Click here to participate in her blog hop.

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For those of you who use the National Library Service for the Blind and Print Disabled, The Red Dress is available for download from their site here. No matter how you read it, please be sure to review it wherever you can. That goes for all my books. Thank you for stopping by. Stay safe, happy, and healthy.

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New! The Red Dress

When Eve went to her high school senior prom, she wore a red dress that her mother had made for her. That night, after dancing with the boy of her dreams, she caught him in the act with her best friend. Months later, Eve, a freshman in college, is bullied into giving the dress to her roommate. After her mother finds out, their relationship is never the same again.

Twenty-five years later, Eve, a bestselling author, is happily married with three children. Although her mother suffers from dementia, she still remembers, and Eve still harbors the guilt for giving the dress away. When she receives a Facebook friend request from her old college roommate and an invitation to her twenty-five-year high school class reunion, then meets her former best friend by chance, she must confront the past in order to face the future.

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Books

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Thursday Book Feature: Ready, Set, Poetry

Ready, Set, Poetry

By D. P. Lyons

Deon Lyons is a poet living in Maine who is totally blind. The poems in this collection are divided into four sections: blindness, nature, memories, and holidays. The author writes about losing his vision in 2010, spending time with his grandchildren, and other topics. Each section begins with narrative describing the poems in that particular section. At the end of the book, there’s another narrative passage in which the author talks about his writing and his hopes for the future.

I met Deon several years ago through Behind Our Eyes, an organization of disabled writers to which we belong. Having worked with senior citizens for fifteen years, some of whom, like Deon, lost their vision later in life, I marvel at how positive Deon is in his poetry, despite frustration and depression that accompanies loss of independence. I also enjoyed reading about his childhood memories. Ready, Set, Poetry, is Deon’s second book, and I would like to read more by him.

I recently learned, though, that Deon is battling a life-threatening form of cancer. He is currently in a rehabilitation facility, where he is receiving chemo and physical therapy in the hope that he will have at least two good years with his family. You can click here to learn more. If you believe in the power of prayer, I suggest you include him. I hope that despite his illness, Deon and his family have a lot to be thankful for on this day.

Now here’s a rare treat, a sample poem from Deon’s book. This was recorded by fellow blogger Lynda McKinney Lambert, another member of Behind Our Eyes who also knows Deon. Because there’s no easy way to translate a Kindle file into braille, I was unable to record myself reading this or any of Deon’s other poems. When Lynda sent me this recording so I could share it with his family, I thought this would be a fitting ending to my review. I hope you think so too.

My Books

My Ideal Partner: How I Met, Married, and Cared for the Man I Loved Despite Debilitating Odds

That’s Life: New and Selected Poems

How to Build a better Mousetrap: Recollections and Reflections of a Family Caregiver

We Shall Overcome

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Thursday Book Feature: Campbell’s Rambles

Campbell’s Rambles: How a Seeing Eye Dog Retrieved My Life

By Patty L. Fletcher

In 2011, Patty Fletcher, a totally blind single mother, acquired Campbell, a black Labrador seeing eye dog, from the facility in Morristown, New Jersey, and brought him home to Kingsport, Tennessee. She first explains how a friend with a guide dog and an incident in a shopping mall inspired her to apply for a dog of her own. She then talks about her boyfriend’s initial reaction, a good foreshadowing of what’s to come. She goes on to describe, in great detail, the trip to New Jersey and the rigorous training process, made more difficult by her fibromyalgia and side effects from her medications. She discusses how one particular trainer influenced her during her training and afterward.

After describing the arduous trip home, she gives the reader a sense of what it’s like to acclimate a new guide dog to new surroundings. She details her disintegrating relationship with her boyfriend, including some instances of abuse, and touches on how that and her bipolar disorder affected her relationships with family and friends. The book has a positive ending.

Once I got into Campbell’s Rambles, I couldn’t put it down. Many anecdotes about her training experiences made me laugh, and I felt her frustration and depression when she messed up. Close to the end of the book, I was virtually on the edge of my seat.

Patty is a remarkable woman. I’ve known her for years, after first meeting her through Behind Our Eyes, an organization of writers with disabilities to which I belong. After acquiring Campbell and her experiences with domestic violence and bipolar disorder and other medical issues, she now runs Tell It to the World Marketing, promoting writers and other entrepreneurs. She has a blog, Campbell’s World, and other social media pages where her clients’ writing can be found. She’s written a second book, Bubba Tails from the Puppy Nursery at The Seeing Eye, and is working on a third.

She’s a survivor. If you take anything at all away from Campbell’s Rambles, it’s this piece of advice her dog trainer at The Seeing Eye repeatedly gave her. “Take a chance. There’s a fifty percent chance you’ll be right.” This applies to all aspects of life, not just the use of a guide dog.

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My Books

My Ideal Partner: How I Met, Married, and Cared for the Man I Loved Despite Debilitating Odds

That’s Life: New and Selected Poems

How to Build a better Mousetrap: Recollections and Reflections of a Family Caregiver

We Shall Overcome

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My Other Links

Visit my website.

Like me on Facebook.

Thursday Book Feature: The Demmies

The Demmies: A Novel

By Ann K. Parsons

Fast forward to the year 2050. Demmies are what Randy Newman could have meant by “

.” These genetically engineered human beings are no more than a foot tall, and as a result, their bodily functions are different from ours. However, they have voices and minds just like we do and can live, love, and think just like the rest of us.

For years, Alex Kenyon and his family have been birds in a gilded cage, living in a luxurious doll house in a lab in Houston, Texas. By day, they are celebrities, promoting the cause of genetic engineering through regular press conferences. By night, they are tortured at the hands of mad scientist Dr. Lud.

As the book opens, Alex’s wife has just given birth to their tenth child. Everyone is on edge as a result of what is being done to them at night, which no one knows about, and the adults fear for their safety and that of the children. They’re afraid to try and escape because it’s a big world out there with big people who may or may not help them. After a series of events including the discovery of a Mexican family of demmies in a different part of the lab complex and the fake death of the Kenyons’ oldest son, some of those big folks risk their lives in an attempt to help them escape and start a new life.

I met the author, Ann Parsons, several years ago when she joined a writers’ group to which I belong. She began writing this story in the 1970’s. After joining our group, she decided to start work on it again and sent chapters to our email list. Even so, knowing how the book ends, I found it hard to put down and might have pulled an all-nighter in order to finish it more quickly.

You don’t have to be a science fiction buff to appreciate this story of oppression followed by freedom. In a way, this book is similar to Aldus Huxley’s Brave New World except in this case, the demmies are only conditioned not to trust big folk, and the ending is more positive. The Demmies is the first of a trilogy of books Ann has written about these little characters. I hope she publishes the other two books in this series. I want to read more.

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