Another Loss…

Losing those we love is always hard. We all expect our parents to die someday. If we are married, we assume one or the other of us will go first. And if we are blessed to live long enough, we will begin to lose close friends. However, what we do not expect is for young people to die suddenly.

I am currently helping to facilitate a GriefShare group , and several of the people in that group have lost children. I know I will never understand just how they feel, but I can’t imagine anything more wrenching.

About an hour after I returned home last Thursday, while scrolling through Facebook, a photo of a dear young lady we loved appeared. When I read the caption, I began to sob. Larry was sitting next to me and asked what was wrong. I was crying so hard I could hardly answer him. I managed to get out, “Brooke died.”

His answer was to be expected: “Huh?”

“Brooke died.”

This time, what I’d said finally registered, and I watched the pain on his face.

I cried for several hours…

~~~

Brooke’s mother, Arleen, was one of our daughter Kim’s best friends in high school. She spent hours with us, and Kim spent time at her house. As with many of Kim’s friends, we stayed in touch with Arleen through marriages, divorces and kids, mostly through email and then later through Facebook.

She finally met Jim, and her life became more stable. They had a daughter, Brooke.

Kim worked at Disneyland for several years, and Arleen and Brooke had passes. When she could, Kim met them there, and they enjoyed the park together.

I remember her telling us that Brooke’s favorite ride was The Haunted Mansion Holiday. Even though she was little, Brooke was never afraid. She loved Jack Skellington.

A few years ago, Arleen called us. She had a favor to ask. Brooke was enrolled in IPoly High School, located on the campus of Cal Poly, Pomona. Only the top students qualified, and Brooke was a terrific student. This program combined the usual high school curriculum along with college-level classes and self-directed learning.

Arleen explained that for her senior project, Brooke had to select a career she might be interested in pursuing and then find a mentor to work with her through the school year. The commitment was for fifty in-person hours plus emails and phone calls throughout the year. Arleen knew we were authors and that I was editing. Brooke decided she wanted to find out about this career, and Arleen asked if we would be willing to work with her. We did not hesitate to answer, “Yes!”

So, during the next eight months, her folks drove her down to our home in Dana Point from their home in San Gabriel Valley every few weeks so we could spend two or three hours with her while they went to the beach. (Fortunately, they both love the beach!)

Arleen, Brooke and Jim

We started with the basics: story structure, character development, world building, etc. We have an extensive collection of books on writing, and every time Brooke came, she went home with two or three. The next time, our visit started with a discussion of what she had learned from the books.

In October, I suggested she take part in NaNoWriMo: National Novel Writing Month. Participants commit to writing every day, completing a book within the month. I told her if she finished, we could edit it together and publish it. She was excited at the prospect.

Larry is a plotter, so he and Brooke discussed creating an outline ahead of time so she would know what her story was about and where it was going. (I, on the other hand, am a “pantser.” I write by the seat of my pants and let the story evolve through my characters.)

She started out enthusiastically, but about halfway through, she lost interest. She completed the book, but she said when she finished, she didn’t like it and didn’t want to publish it. We agreed the experience was still a good exercise.

I gave her a couple of chapters of a book I had edited and asked her to take a shot at it for practice. She brought it back, and we compared her notes with mine. She did a great job with it.

Larry completed his sci-fi book, The McGregor Chronicles: Book 3 - Alien Invasion, while we were working with Brooke and invited her to be a beta reader. She gave him several suggestions, which he included. And she is mentioned in the Acknowledgements. Her review is quoted in the Readers’ Comments section of the book.

Periodically, we had to log into her school portal to record the number of hours we’d spent and answer a few questions about what we had done. She did the same.

During one of our last sessions, she sat with me as I uploaded a manuscript I had edited and formatted for an older gentleman. I’d asked if I could call him during the process so I could explain what I was doing, and I asked his permission for Brooke to look on in real time so she could see the actual steps. As a former teacher, he was delighted to have her. She watched and asked questions of me and the author. It felt like it was the most valuable time we spent with her.

She had to produce a final project and chose to do an interactive PowerPoint for her class about what she had learned. She sent it to us ahead of her presentation, and we were impressed with her work. So was her teacher. I think she got an A+ grade on it.

Of course, we attended her graduation and cheered loudly along with her large family when she walked across the stage.

High School Graduation

She decided to take a gap year before starting college. During that year, the family moved from California to Florida.

She did return to college, where she graduated with honors and immediately started on her Masters degree. We expected to hear great things from her.

She was one class short of completing her degree when her mother found her in her bed last Thursday morning…

~~~

We are still processing the news, but we are also very grateful to have had Brooke in our lives. We came to love her very much. We have no grandchildren, but Brooke became like a grandchild.

Thank you, Brooke, for the sunshine and joy you gave to this world.