When I was growing up, I thought friendships were restricted to those with whom I went to school—people I saw and interacted with every day. As the years passed, these people began to disappear, and our lives took different paths. Contact was lost, and inevitably, I became forgotten, as we probably all did, as those relationships were not nurtured. This is life; it is not wrong but just how it is.
Over the years, when that same life throws at you lemons and various hurdles, even successes and achievements, you can suddenly feel the loss of those relationships you had once grown up with. Someone to pick up a phone and talk with and meet up with and share your newfound hopes or fears.
And yet, as these doors close, others open up, and new relationships get forged.
I speak of myself in the main and how, through circumstances not always in my control, my childhood friendships have been lost. And yet, I am blessed to have met so many new contacts through the opening door that, by chance or by destiny, have come into my life and world and set me on a path I had never envisioned.
I was encouraged to share my family life journey and also write, something I had yet to think about in those early years. Buoyed by the suggestion that what I have to say in my words may support others following our journey, I put pen to paper to see what I could draft.
It was wholly unexpected, and following a period of writing responses and articles for a specialist magazine, a publisher approached me, wanting to publish my draft manuscript.
Many of those new contacts have become friends to whom I owe so much for their encouragement, support, and ongoing friendship.
The book is in the process of being edited, its cover design completed, and final proofreading. It is an honour to have such a story identified as suitable for publication and I thank all those who have steered me to this point.
