.png)
It's Real
I held my book in my hands.
My actual book.
Glimmers in the Dark: Tales of a Bougie Widow.
I’m not sure there are words for what that felt like.
This book started in the darkest season of my life. I didn’t sit down one day and think, You know what would be fun? Becoming an author. Life gave me a story I never wanted to write.
I lost my son, Brian. Twenty days later, I lost my husband, Christopher.
Somehow, in the middle of shock, grief, questions, tears, completely inappropriate laughter, and simply trying to figure out how to get through another day, I started writing.
At first, I think I was trying to survive. Writing gave me somewhere to put everything that felt too big to carry around inside me. Memories mixed with ridiculous moments, sacred experiences, people who showed up at exactly the right time, things I was learning about grief, and things I was discovering about myself.
Then there were the glimmers. Sunsets, flowers, butterflies, songs, perfectly timed words, strange coincidences that didn’t always feel like coincidences. Little reminders of love kept finding me in some of my darkest moments.
Some of what happened was so wild, so bougie, and honestly, so miraculous that I knew I had to share it. There were moments when even I thought, You cannot make this stuff up.
Somewhere along the way, writing stopped being only a place for my grief to go. These stories started becoming something more.
Eventually, they became a book. Now I can hold it in my hands. That part still doesn’t feel real.
I wish with everything in me that Brian and Christopher were here to see this. At the same time, I know this book exists because of how deeply I love them. Their fingerprints are all over these pages, right alongside every messy, faithful, angry, funny, ridiculous, hopeful, definitely bougie piece of me. 😂
This book doesn’t tell a story about leaving darkness behind. It tells the story of discovering that darkness and light can coexist.
Glimmers in the Dark goes live on Amazon Tuesday.
Typing that sentence feels absolutely wild.
I have no idea where this book will go or whose hands it will find. My hope is simply that it finds the people who need it. Maybe someone sitting in their own darkness will feel a little less alone. Maybe they’ll laugh on a day they desperately needed to laugh. Maybe they’ll start noticing tiny pieces of light they would have missed before.
Most of all, I hope these stories remind someone that finding light doesn’t require pretending the darkness wasn’t real. Sometimes you don’t get a giant beam of light showing you the whole way forward. Sometimes you just get a glimmer. Maybe that’s enough to take the next step.
The Song for This Story 🎵
“Life Won’t (It Is Well)” — One Common
There couldn't be a more fitting song for this first post. The opening words, “I’ve got stories I wish I didn’t have to tell,” feel like they could have been written for this book. It captures that strange place where grief and faith live together—where life has turned out nothing like you wanted, yet somehow you can still say, it is well with my soul.
This one feels like the soundtrack to Glimmers in the Dark.
So here it is—the video of me opening the box and seeing my book for the very first time.
A book I never planned to write, born from a story I never wanted to live.
Yet somehow, something beautiful came out of the dark.
It’s real.
Here we go. 🧡
Comments