My Left Hand - A Memoir

I am lucky to have a large, loving and supportive family. I am grateful to the State of Maryland for helping me along and for my Autumn Lake at Crofton nursing home. I hope for a time when I can take care of myself and travel again. I have my eyes on the prize. I try to walk every day and keep my leg strong. We must be more than a string of experiences and deeds. If just one person reads something in the book and thinks, I have thought that before or that sounds like me, I will be satisfied.I am a 58-year-old teacher, writer and parent to Sam, 22, whom I raised on my own.

In 2019, I had a stroke while I was teaching in Mexico. I have struggled not to become bitter and to remain full of gratitude for this beautiful world and the great people in it with whom I have crossed paths. When I think about my future, I envision myself lucky enough to have a grandchild or two and to live close to my son. I can speak and think, so I consider myself lucky to be living a long and interesting life. I keep hope alive for my future.

I can close my eyes and go back to so many places, but I must be more than a string of memories. I hope I was a good friend and a loving and supportive and engaging teacher. And a good mother. I lived in Colorado, the highest state in the USA, where it seemed to snow frequently on the Fourth of July! And I broiled under a Middle Eastern sun, so hot you could fry an egg on the sidewalk. My life has been full of contrasts.

I have been broke and comfortably well off; I have been both athletic and wheelchair bound. I am not quite sure why God put so many lessons and contrasts into my life, but I can only attest to this one life. I hope you come to care about the girl in the book. I have done all kinds of jobs, some lowly, many gratifying, and I have been entrusted with people's most valuable entity, their children. I have spent parts of my life deeply in love and in others, terribly lonely. I just hope you see yourself in this contrast, and in other ways too.

In writing this memoir, I was trying to learn more about myself and other people, and I wanted to relive my life from my place now in a wheelchair. Writing here has given my life purpose and focus and shape. My life was unusual�the story of someone who volunteered for homeless cats, shot elk in the woods, and did most things with a sense of humor. We are all mentally connected in some way, like a root system. The hardest part of this book was the organization. Once I had that in place, with the help of four editors, the rest seemed to flow: early childhood, education, Maryland, Colorado, then Abu Dhabi and Mexico and Maryland, paralysis and writing