This is a difficult post to write, but has been a long time coming. Before Don’s passing, I debated pulling the book from online store shelves based on a negative review and I had promised the reviewer that I planned to address her feedback. Not wanting to sell something sub-par, I knew there was work to do, but I thought I could update one chapter at a time and upload new versions so that I didn’t need to pull it completely.
One of her criticisms was that I was too hard on the rest of my family as I attempted to shift their worldview. If you’ve read many of my other posts, you’ll know that a major theme is finding joy in the midst of challenging life situations. Getting my family to find joy was a major ordeal and there were a lot of fights and negative situations detailed in the book that I was going to have to re-examine.
Now, I know just how bad things really were. While the book had a happy ending, the rest of our year, I was still continuously reminding my husband to “choose to smile” instead of getting frustrated. We fought over the way he constantly looked down on my children for their childish ways and the way he talked to them. I didn’t understand some of his anger and annoyance or why his desires took drastic approaches to isolation and involvement with no regularity.
I now know that he was depressed and bottling it up, with no way to communicate to me what he was feeling. I posted shortly after his suicide and the post spread very far, but I realized quickly that I could not force myself to relive those fights now that I know how much I failed to get him to adopt our same joyful outlook.
Before I could pull it, sales started to creep up. I’m saddened by this. My blog post might have been decent writing, but the book needed more work, and at the same time, I have no desire to make money off the aftermath of my husband’s death. The thought makes me feel dizzy and sick.
I do still intend to re-publish it, after I have been able to look at it again. I can’t promise when that will be. More than ever, I think the message of finding joy is a story that needs to be told. Because it is abundantly clear what happens when you can’t find a way.
I wish joy to each and every one of you and pray that I return to finding my own soon as well.
It is so hard to Leave a comment using the right words. Take your time my friend but keep your promise and re-publish it. it took a lot of effort and this is a memory of your lifetime.. and the messagge makes it all. Member I wait for your book ?