KEEPING A MEMORY ALIVE

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A bit of a sad day, because June 15, 2021 is the two-year anniversary of my mother's passing. 
I'm not too broken up about it. (The first year, however was awful, like being thrust into an emotional maelstrom.) Instead I guess you could say I'm more reflective.
I think a big help was working on my soon-to-publish fifth book, A Cold Spell. It's getting some final looks now, but should land in July. The character of Fiona is based hugely on my mother. I did take a few liberties, making Fiona born in the U.S., (my mother was born in Germany), among a few other small details. But in spirit Fiona is very much my mother. She's blonde. She loves glittery and shiny things. She likes to stand up for the underdog. She's ornery. She can drive her daughter crazy sometimes, but they're close. They have one another's backs.
Sometimes I wish I could have had my mother's back a bit more in her last years. She had dementia and would get quite combative. I would prickle and fight against that sometimes. It took a while to learn how to handle a loved one with dementia. It makes it all the harder when the mother who raised you, who is supposed to know more and know better, suddenly doesn't.
But I think in some ways I've tried to make some amends to her in my books. She was alive to see three of them published, and liked that, one, I'd written books, and two, that she hugely inspired a character in them. I think she also liked that I infused the books with little tidbits and memories of things we'd done and places we'd seen. 
She's been surprisingly easy to write, too. Possibly the easiest, and most fun. When I write her character's antics I don't necessarily see my mother in my head, but I feel her, in a way, if that makes sense.
Hopefully when you read more of Poppy and Fiona's adventures (because Fiona has a huge role in book number five), you feel her spirit and sass there, too.
​She'd insist upon it.

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