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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link="#0563C1" vlink="#954F72"><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal> <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>INTRODUCTION<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Anyone who reads this book needs to know two things: I am a private person who did not write any of the poems and prose included for wide publication, and this is a book I never wanted to write. Still, here we are, you and I, sharing my emotions and memories. <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Initially, I wrote most of the poems as a member of a critique group that met monthly and asa member of the larger writers’ online group comprised of people with disabilities, Behind Our Eyes. Beyond the members of Behind Our Eyes, I gave a few poems to friends. That was as far as I was willing to go. While my colleagues were busy with publishing work in journals and as books, I was content to hand a poem, literally or metaphorically, to another reader in the hope she or he might find help, empathy, or solace It was my idea of the literary equivalent of sitting at my kitchen table with that friend as we shared cups of tea and whatever my work brought to the surface. . <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>However, several friends urged me to compile a collection to reach a wider audience. While the material included here is drawn from my own life and experiences, I began to realize that many individuals in late middle age or old age were also struggling with issues such as the deaths of spouses and parents, aging bodies, illness, caregiving, and mapping ways forward into unknown territory alone or in very changed circumstances.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>While I wrote many of the poems as a way to unearth and process my reactions, it wasn’t until I viewed them as a whole that I saw that the majority of the pieces were about dearly loved people and animals who had died. As I re-read my words, I would have given almost anything to trade the words for another chance for more time with the people and animals I had lost. Sadly, life doesn’t give any of us that option. So, I decided to keep their memories alive through words and to send those words wherever this book might take them. After a year of COVID lockdown, I believe we all walk with some degree of sadness and bewilderment as we seek to live with loss. Although I have never believed in closure, I do think that, after loss and change, we are, at our core, resilient human beings who can come out of the shadow of sorrow and choose to take small steps at first and then larger ones into a future, one that is quite different but, nonetheless, beckoning.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div></body></html>