BOOK & BLOG BLOCK PARTY

Hello my friends and newcomers!! Welcome to Rave Review Book Club's BOOK & BLOG PARTY at A Writer's Journey, Staten Island, New York. Enter by leaving a comment to win daily prizes and one Grand prize. Today I am giving away one (1) ebook called: . . . And the Whippoorwill Sang and one (1) ebook of The Cat Who Wanted a Dog. If you already have these books, I will subsititute another ebook that I think you will like.

Happy times, a sunny day, a driving drunk, eight lives forever 
changed.

The elusive whippoorwill swoops down the mountains.

Through night into dawn it's song mourns summer's loss--

as I cry mine.   

    AND THE WHIPPOORWILL SANG, a 300 page memoir, opens with eloping teenagers, Micki and Butch, in a bizarre double wedding ceremony with Micki’s mother.  The couple share comical escapades, spanning decades. A terrible accident occurs in a placid valley nestled in the Susquehanna Mountains. Micki narrates happier days while confronting an uncertain future. One of her six children is fighting for life in the hospital. The family embarks upon its unbearable journey to the other side of sorrow . . . 

    And so  in the throes of grief, a writing career was born.

A Whippoorwill looking in the window

                     LEGACY OF LOVE by Micki Peluso

 I stood in the small church, supported by the prayers of loved ones, mantled with the soulful whine of the church organ playing its dirge of death. I felt a separation of mind and body.  Someone was standing here, but it couldn’t be me. The smell of incense permeated my senses, overwhelming with its cloying scent. Next to me, covered with a shroud, stood the casket of my child. I would not look at it, could not.

The words of the priest droned on and on, completing the Mass, and the ceremony finally drew to a close, but I was lost in a sea of unrelated thought. I heard nothing; I felt nothing, except a desire to be done with this, to be free to face my grief alone. We walked, my family and I, down the endless aisle of concerned, tear streaked faces, united in a melange of emotion, following the one who would never again walk among us. Then out into the overcast day, whose sun had the dignity not to shine, we entered the limousines and headed for the cemetery to say our final goodbye. The ride to the cemetery was tortuously slow. We climbed the long winding mountain road to the top, surrounded by grotesquely  beautiful tombstones, the only proof of former lives. 

Surely this was just a dream. I would awaken soon and rebuke the nightmare that enveloped my senses, sighing with relief. Oh God, please let this be a dream. But no, the grass was too lushly green. Tear shaped droplets of rain hung precariously from misted, succulent leaves. The dark gray clouds swirling in anger as the sun tried vainly to push them aside in a futile effort to dominate the day, were too real. Yes, this was actually happening.

There were over a hundred people standing behind me; their silence bearing down upon me like the crush of ocean waves. I fought the compulsion to slide into oblivion and let this travesty proceed without me.

There was a small crucifix on top of the darkly ominous box which was now my daughter’s residence. I tried to focus on that one object in an effort to retain my sanity. The voice of the priest, overflowing with empathy, broke the silence with, I was told later, a moving and beautiful eulogy. His words rained down over me, covering me with compassionate warmth, but I comprehended no meaning. Closing my mind to everything around me, the box and I stood alone together in the macabre stillness of a lonely mountain top, whose residents, except for birds and trees, were all stone cold and unfeeling.

There was no life here, not even serenity, just the vacuous emptiness of space and time, devoid of animation. What a cruel, unlikely place to leave one who was so vivacious, so seething with spirit, so very much alive. I had to leave this place. My daughter was not here.

After the funeral, our family unit was forever altered. Yet life went on and swept us along; children had to be fed and cared for, careers had to be maintained.

The ten-day wait in the Intensive Care Unit was over. Family, neighbors and friends moved on with their own lives and we were forced to continue ours, in spite of the gaping hole left by the absence of Noelle. There would be no more hovering by her bedside, praying for the miracle that would heal her severed spinal cord; broken by the thoughtless drunk driver who struck her down in broad daylight miracle that was not meant to be. Noelle’s fourteen years of life were over and her two brothers, three sisters, her father and I had to somehow face the future without the child who had lit up our lives and had given us constant pleasure.

The other children reacted in different ways. One became bulimic and suicidal, another, anxious and panic stricken. Yet another raced his car at high speeds, defying death to take him too, while his brother became withdrawn, depressed and barely spoke. Our oldest child, at twenty one, left home to deal with her grief away from us; we caused her too much pain.

Two years later, our oldest daughter had married and was bearing her firstborn child. She had a long and life threatening labor and did not, nor did the rest of us, notice that when she finally brought her son into the world–it was on the day that Noelle died. Upon realizing this, she was horrified and sobbed as she lay in recovery. The rest of us were equally appalled and awestruck by what by what we perceived to be one of life’s cruel ironies.

And then the miracle happened. During the next few years the tragic day that claimed the life of Noelle became, instead, the birthday of a beautiful little boy. Noelle had somehow sent us the gift of healing. Today, as we continue to celebrate that day, our grief is temporarily put aside, and the memories of Noelle have become sweet, bittersweet, yet softened by the little boy born on the date she died. Ian was two years old when he told his mother, Kim, that “when I grow up and become Noelle, the truck will miss me.

At 14 years old, Ian traveled with his grandmother to Rome and in a narrow alley, a car whizzed by and the rear-view mirror (like the one that severed Noelle’s spinal cord) missed him by inches. Other grandchildren seemed obsessed with Noelle as well, even though we did not speak of her often. Nicole’s two year old son, Nicholas told his mother that Noelle was in the room with them. His mother thought he meant her picture but he insisted he could see her. It was her birthday. Kelly’s son, Brandon pointed at the ceiling and babbled until he could talk and then reported seeing Noelle everywhere, once in the front seat of the car next to his mother. He claimed that Noelle had told him not to play in the street with the big boys. He also claimed that he could not see Noelle as often around Christmas because the sky was filled with angels. There were many instances like this. As I lay dying from back to back heart attacks, Noelle came to her father, smiled and gave him the thumbs up—I lived. These visits we believe were Noelle’s way of assuring us that her soul was alive and well, her way of easing our grief–her legacy of love.

https://www.amazon.com/Micki-Peluso/e/B002BLZ7JK/ref=sr_tc_2_0?qid=1483149986&sr=1-2-ent

https://www.facebook.com/AndTheWhippoorwillSang/?ref=aymt_homepage_panel

                                                             The Cat Who Wanted a Dog

Based on a true story, this tale is narrated by Toby, a cat who lives with Grandma and Grampa and has never met a dog. His life changes when  a huge golden retriever, comes to visit. Rocky is a lovable dog and tries to make friends with Toby, who is both afraid of him and disgusted with his doggy drool. They finally become friends and then Rocky's visit is over. Toby is so sad that Grandma and Grampa take him to the doctor who suggests that the poor cat seems lonely. Toby gets an amazing present for Christmas with a big red bow and drooling nose sticking through the wrapped box. His life after that is never the same as his heart swells with happiness. But Toby is in for a big surprise!

https://www.amazon.com/Micki-Peluso/e/B002BLZ7JK/ref=sr_tc_2_0?qid=1483149986&sr=1-2-ent

Thanks for visiting my blog and remember to leave a comment to be eligible for some great prizes. Good luck!!

Micki Peluso