Grief: An Ongoing Journey

I just want my joy back! It seems as if it were just yesterday when I spoke those words to my husband. He had just been diagnosed with Adenoid Cystic Carcinoma and I had just lost both of my parents to Alzheimer’s. Grief is an ongoing journey for me. There are good days and then there are horrible days. It is in my darkest of days that I find some comfort in my writing. It is through my writing that I’m finding my joy.

Very recently I was approached with this question “What is reborn and what dies?” He told me to think about it. As I went about the next several days I did think about it. I thought about “What Dies” and I thought about my mother and my father. I thought about my brother. I thought about “What is reborn” and my hope is that my mother, father and brother were.

I also thought about when the day comes for my death, I too would be reborn and we would all be together again. As a Christian I believe there is Spiritual Rebirth and Salvation in everything. I believe this will be the most important of all the gifts that my Lord will give to me.

So it will be during my darkest of days that I will do my best to stay focused on this gift.

Deborah Ann Tornillo
Author, “36 Days Apart”
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http://www.authorsden.com/dtornillo

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Deborah Tornillo

Deborah Tornillo was born and raised in Corpus Christi, Texas by her loving and nurturing parents. She attended the University of San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, where she studied Art. After marrying, raising two daughters and enjoying life with her family, Deborah joined a higher calling by committing to be the primary caregiver for her parents, both of whom were diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in February 2006. In her new collection of memoirs, 36 Days Apart: A memoir of a daughter, her parents and the Beast named – Alzheimer’s: A story of Life, Love and Death, Deborah chronicles the time spent taking care of her mother and father. 36 Days Apart recounts this painful, enlightening journey, and Tornillo writes candidly about the struggles and fears she faced as her parents’ caregiver. As their disease progressed, Tornillo was faced with the difficult task of learning how to be a parent to her own parents. Through the year and a half of caring for them she extensively researched Alzheimer’s in order to provide the best care possible, all the while knowing that the disease would eventually win in the end. 36 Days Apart gives an honest, unflinching look at the realities of caring for and losing loved ones to Alzheimer’s. Tornillo gives the reader an inside look into the day-to-day life she faced during her heartbreaking, difficult time.

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