The Journey Home
by
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In the beginning, the door itself presented as a pleasant remembrance. The flowers were from her grandfather’s garden. Profuse and diverse, they bloomed just as she had known them. The last of ten children, she was conceived and born in the sin of blatant drunkenness. In another time and place, it would have been a violation of matrimonial love. The seed, carried grudgingly to term, was delivered like a cumbersome burden and in haste deposited and left alone on the doorstep of life.
Initially sibling adolescents, named by number, handled and managed her days. When she was four, the aged patriarch arrived to live out his last days as unobtrusively as possible. Suddenly a troublesome child and a bothersome frail man, both shooed away by caregivers who didn’t care, found a kindred spirit – another soul to love. He sang lovely sweet lullabies to coax her to sleep. When all else failed, he was the one who could console and take her to dreamland. He loved and nurtured her. She gleaned the wisdom of age; he remembered and thrived in the pure simplicity and naturalness of youth. Together they created a world where it was possible for both of them to grow and blossom.
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About the Book
Our childhood is an intricate part of who we become as adults. Everyone has difficulty, despair and disappointment in their past. How we choose to overcome these challenges determines the course of our lives. Through it all, love has the potential to heal old wounds.
In a time when children were meant to be seen and not heard, young lives were not always honored. Jamie and Martha, a brother and sister who were tragically orphaned at a young age, find themselves shuffled between family and friends. Stripped of their voices and choices, they endure heartbreaking circumstances that no child should ever experience. Even though disappointment seems to be the only constant in their young lives, they struggle courageously to find bits and pieces of happiness in a world that is often cruel and spiteful.
Through it all, something pure and innocent within the children refuses to die. On their journey, they learn one of life’s most important and powerful lessons: the healing power of love makes life – and living – possible. While love cannot change the past, it is the key to redeeming an unwritten future. For Martha and Jamie, it is love that creates the true refuge that is home.
About the Author
Willy Nywening a retired English and special education teacher, is inspired by faith and family. In 1997, she published a daily inspirational anthology called Sister Stories. The Journey Home is inspired by her father, who was orphaned at seven. Willy and her husband, Dick, live in Strathroy, Ontario.