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Lifeline Online: A Memoir
ReviewsBy K. Trout "Kaye" (Pagosa Springs, CO USA) Quoting from the back cover: By chall3432 (Florida) The Internet is a popular and vital part of the lives of many of us today and like most things, it has both good points and bad. For instance, today's news is filled with stories of computer chat rooms. Many are danger zones, some pleasant pastimes, but some are beneficial.
Fears Flutterby
"She struggled writing the book, not knowing who the real person was. Was she the child of her mother and father or the wife to her ex-husband? Was she the mother of her two children, or the person full of fear that she knew so well? Was she the caregiver to her friend? Was she the unforgiving person or the loving person, the child of God? Who was the real person? Or was she all the above?" Joanna Lamatt is trapped inside a circle of panic and fear, which have colored her daily thoughts to the point where she is living a neurotic existence. As her twenty-six year marriage is falling apart, she meets Catherine, a woman whose tenderness and caring have a profound impact on her life. As the friendship blossoms, Joanna makes the decision to leave the marriage and move in with Catherine. Through their time together, Joanna undergoes a process of self-discovery and slowly emerges like a butterfly from a cocoon. When Catherine is diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease, Joanna must find a way to let go of the one person she has relied on for support to face life on her own. As a testament to God's influence in her life and the healing powers of love, Lamatt penned Fears Flutterby.
Reviews“This book was a refreshing change in pace for me-from fiction. I do read autobiographies but typically of a historical nature-famous people. Fears Flutterby is about a woman's life-her childhood, marriage, family, problems, friendships, divorce, and an abiding love. It could be about you or me. It's a story about her ongoing challenge to find and deal with the source of her fears. Also, it's about the love and compassion she found inside herself when she was challenged to deal with a special friend's Alzheimer's disease. “I think Fears Flutterby will particularly appeal to and touch mature women who have been married, had children and are possibly divorced because they can relate to her problems...and too, it may appeal to young women who enjoy learning from other women. It definitely will appeal to all readers who enjoy true life stories about challenge and growth. I have to admit...it may bring up tears. Quoting from the book, 'So, when do you part? Never-if you have loved another, you're never parted.' “Fears Flutterby is the author's debut as a published writer, and I think
it's well done.” “A window to a child's world only known by those with similar fears. A
confusion in searching for the niche in a young woman's life that is continually
interrupted by having to deal with those unshared fears. And, eventually,
the courage, love and happiness of finding the self that could give and
receive love, help to make her feel safe and discover the love of another
person that only happens once in a lifetime. Ultimately, having to give
that loved one's soul to the only 'power' that could deal with the horrific
devastation of a disease called 'Alzheimers'.” “January 2006, rm Lamatt invites us into her very complex life with a
true sense of reality and warmth. While dealing with the pressures of the
picture perfect marriage of the '60's, she is also being challenged by
her own mysterious and frightening health issues. This also in a time when
women's emotional issues were too often dismissed lightly. Her own search
brings her to what may appear to be difficult choices, yet as vulnerable
as she believes she is, she has the courage to make them. Her personal
search is slowly diminished by the need to care for her dearest love. Through
heart gripping, and sometimes painful retelling, Lamatt forces us to look
at our own lives, our loved ones, and those we care for in a very, very
real way. It is a story that anyone who plans to grow older, or knows someone
that does, must read.” ExcerptExcerpt from FEARS FLUTTERBY
- Copyright© 2005 by Rm Lamatt CHAPTER ONE - THOUGHTS Till death do you part? These are the words I had heard more than forty years ago standing in front of a Catholic Priest. I had said, “I do” to that question, and now I wonder what they really mean. Do they mean when the heart stops beating or do they mean when the brain stops sending signals? These thoughts have been near, but the words so far from my brain. I have kept them hidden or unknown to my own self, stuffed in the back of my mind where others couldn’t know of them. Now that they have finally come forward, I’m constantly in front of the computer getting them down on paper. Needing a break, I came outside to sit on the porch, in a rickety old yellow web chair a friend had given me when I moved here in 2001. Under the balcony the squirrels are playing, running from tree to tree and mockingbirds mocking, flitting back and forth from limb to limb. The butterflies intrigue me the most, when they come to the second floor to say hello. Today I feel like a vine that has climbed out of the dirt to show itself to the sun for the first time. I’ve been in the same clothes for days – beige ragged tee shirt, black silk shorts and tan moccasins. I disconnect myself from the computer screen once in awhile to eat and drink. Food shopping happens possibly once a week, if I’m up to it, otherwise it’s a slice of bread out of the freezer, toasted with peanut butter and a glass of milk. Not such a great diet this past year and a half. I’m eating less but still have put on weight from sitting and no exercise. I’m sure my fingers have lost weight from everyday typing, sometimes ten and twelve hours a day. The book is almost done, maybe a few corrections here and there. My condo overlooks the ninth green of the golf course, which gives me more reflection to write than I’ve ever had. I’ve lived here just over three years and don’t know a soul, except to say hello to the next door neighbors who arrive in fall and leave in spring. Snowbirds they’re called, and I’m sure they probably think I’m a hermit or someone who’s a little loony, staying inside all day when there are tennis courts, a pool and a golf course right below me. Maybe one day I’ll join in the fun but not just yet. I’ve got this quest to finish and finding the little black books has helped me further the story. Sometimes I feel old – older than the folks who live here, who are seventy, eighty and more. Me? I’m in my early sixties, but feel older when the words won’t come and I fight to remember. Sipping a glass of ice water and lemon I watch the golfers come off the green from their day of fun. They’re checking scorecards and getting ready to go home and start dinner. I loved this time of day years ago playing golf – late afternoon sun making shadows so long you couldn’t see the holes on the greens. This course is small and quaint, similar to another I lived on once before. I remember the days of golf when it was a passion, and sometimes the only thing in my life. But what the heck, I never thought there was anything wrong with that. It kept me sane and out in the world of nature, which I loved. The winds of time have changed now, for illness is attacking my body. Funny, these bodies don’t last long. You’d think God would have given us a body like Abraham, who lived three hundred years or more. Golf did bring me God though, if that’s possible. Green grass, trees, birds, squirrels, butterflies – all living energies of God, were the feelings I had while walking the course. I once knew golf like the back of my hand. I could make the ball go right or left, stop or roll. Yes, I knew it like the back of my hand, but my hand has changed over the twenty years. Now it shows wrinkles, blue lines and brown dots. I’m living like my beginning days of golf, when I didn’t know which way the ball would go when the club struck it. I thought life got easier when you aged. But it gets more difficult each year. At least this last year and a half have been productive. I’m feeling my mortality and thinking I don’t know where I’ll be next year. My lease was signed for another year in November of 2003 and it’s almost the middle of the next year. It’s sliding by too fast and the book has to be done by the end of the year. The money or my health must not run out. When the paramedics were called last summer I thought for sure it was the end. I was angry because I still hadn’t finished the story. I had started it when I was sixteen, when my life changed so drastically, then again at age forty-one, when I found out who I really was. And now I’ve found the little black books that have led me further. I know now, I can’t put it away again. . .
Places to OrderClick HERE to order from Amazon.com Click HERE to order from BarnesAndNoble.com Click HERE to order from OutskirtsPress
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