The Romance of Death

My dad died.

It’s easier to type those words than it is to say them out loud. I’m a fairly straightforward person. I don’t like sugar coating my statements and I don’t like euphemisms. I hate when someone says, “I had a few beers” when they actually got shitfaced and pissed themselves. Saying something in a more pleasant way doesn’t change the facts of what happened. Euphemisms serve no purpose other than to make the truth more palatable. I always found it irritating when people purposely avoided saying that someone had died. Instead, they “passed” or “left this world”.

Until now.

Now, I understand. Almost every single time I had to inform someone that my dad had died, I would choke on any form of the word death. I would purposely not say it. I embraced any genteelism I could find in an effort to avoid the cold truth. In the eulogy I gave for him, there were plenty of words describing my loss but none of those words included death. Because death sucks. It hurts like hell and it’s hard. So very, very hard.

But hard doesn’t equal wrong. My dad’s death (yes, I can say it now) wasn’t wrong. It was and is painful for me. I feel it every single day, but it wasn’t wrong. He was ready and it was time. If he could have chosen the time and place, his death would have happened exactly as it did. He is off on an amazing new adventure, one not hampered by a body that would no longer cooperate with the business of living.

To quote my rock, my love and my bestest friend, Mark: “Life isn’t easy for anyone. It’s inherently hard, it’s going to hurt and eventually, it will kill you.”

So, why is a romance author writing about pain and death? Death isn’t romantic.

Oh, but it is….

Death and sadness are part of the romance of life. Without the lows, the highs wouldn’t be as high. Without the hardship and loss, the joys and gifts of life would be less sweet. Writing romance novels is about finding the hope in the mundane, about always believing everything will work out in the end no matter how rough the road gets. I wouldn’t be able to write the way I do if I couldn’t see the beauty in the pain or the opportunity in the loss. To feel the sorrow is to have known the joy. To feel the emptiness is to have known the love. Being a good writer means drawing inspiration from the spectrum of human emotion. The whole spectrum, not only the parts that make us feel good.

My current work in progress is the first in a planned series of four stories about four sisters and their respective happily ever afters. The entire premise of the series is predicated on the loss of their father. The first chapter takes place days after the unexpected death of Jasper Brooks. It is written from the perspective of his daughter, Billie, who is by far the closest to him of all his daughters. Her pain drives her work ethic and her determination to succeed in keeping the family ranch operational. I don’t know what pushed me to start a romance series with one of the most painful losses a person can endure, but I did. And I did it before I knew firsthand the aching loss of a parent. I started this series over a year ago. This chapter was written long before I was Billie.

I didn’t touch the book for months after I lost my dad. Partly because I wasn’t ready to share my pain with Billie and partly because I had to work through the pain before I could see the beauty. It’s hard to type when you’re crying.

I’m back in the game now – writing, planning, re-writing, still crying occasionally. Ok, more than occasionally. But, I can now see the joy beyond the sorrow and the love beyond the emptiness. My loss will transition into a deeper connection with Billie and what I hope will be a better experience for my readers. I titled this blog post The Romance of Death, but it is really about the Romance of Life. It is about the richness of the emotional experience and the opportunity to be found when it feels like we’ve lost everything. It is about finding the hope in the hurt and the silver in the dark cloud.

It is about believing in the happy ending….