Pat Bertram

The Waning of Grief

March 6, 2013 — Pat Bertram

Grief has taken a back seat in my life for now — so much else is going on, including getting used to my father’s increased dependency and having moments of panic about where I’m going to go when he’s gone. I’d just about decided to move to a lovely small town in Colorado, having developed a craving for familiar cool mountain climes (and cool mountain climbs) until I discovered that the town has a very cold humid climate. Eek. I don’t tolerate humidity well. And 87 inches of snow a year? Double eek. So I’m back to zero. I don’t really want to stay here in the desert because my life would be much the same as it is today, sort of like a real life treadmill. Staying is an option, though, and treadmill aside, I do know people here. But it doesn’t feel like home. And right now, I’d like to go home.

The trouble, of course, is that no place would feel like home. Home was with my life mate/soul mate, wherever we happened to be. Like so many women in my stage of grief’s journey — past the tsunami of raw grief and not yet arrived at a new life — I have an itch to be on the move. Being settled — settled alone, that is — seems so much like stagnation.

I crave challenges. Adventure. Travel. The irony is that I don’t particularly like to travel, I hate hotels and motels, and I don’t like being unsettled. But what else am I going to do? Sit alone in an apartment for the rest of my life? If I’m on the move, anything could happen, maybe even something that will revitalize my life.

Four years seems to be a magic number when it comes to grief. Often that fourth anniversary is the turning point where we feel some sort of disconnect to the past, when everything suddenly feels new again, and we feel free to leap toward whatever future awaits us. I am letting go of the past and I do want to experience life to the fullest, but I’ve not yet arrived at the turning point — the future still seems bleak to me. Still, I’m just counting down to the third anniversary of his death, so I have a long way to go before I’ll feel up to taking any sort of leap, but I am holding on to the belief that such a time will come.

And maybe then the problem of where to go and what to do will take care of itself.

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Pat Bertram is the author of the suspense novels Light Bringer, More Deaths Than One, A Spark of Heavenly Fire, and Daughter Am I. Bertram is also the author of Grief: The Great Yearning, “an exquisite book, wrenching to read, and at the same time full of profound truths.” Connect with Pat on Google+

Posted in culture, grief, life. Tags: craving challenges, fourth anniversary of grief, life as a treadmill, mountains vs desert, the process of grief, third anniversary of grief, turning point of grief. 9 Comments »

Countdown to One Hundred and One Adventures

March 5, 2013 — Pat Bertram

I’m on the left side of the photo

Things are settling down in my life and revving up all at once. My father finally was able to start his breathing treatments and now is more alert, has a bit more energy, and shows more interest in food, so we’re settling back into our quiet life without alarums and excursions. (Hospital excursions, that is.)

My headlong rush into life slowed this past year — I didn’t really do much to embrace life except yoga lessons for a while and walks in the desert. In an effort to revitalize my life, I promised myself to seek one hundred and one adventures, but the promise didn’t give me the push I expected because life got in the way of my embracing life. (I guess, though, as long as I am present even in the unsettling times, I am embracing life, which is an adventure in itself.)

But now I’m on track, at least for this month, with two great adventures planned. Tomorrow night or Thursday morning, depending on when she gets here, I will be meeting my best friend from high school for the first time in decades. The whirlwinds of life flung us in different directions, but now those same winds are bringing us back together. I doubt I will recognize her, but voices seem to be the last things to change, so I should at last recognize the sound of her voice. (Now that I think about it, it seems odd that we’ve only emailed sporadically this past year and never once talked on the phone, so I have an only an assumption that she still sounds the same.) After all this time, will we have anything to say to each other? Will we like each other, or will we take each other in aversion? It should be interesting to find out. (Besides . . . of course she’ll like me. What’s not to like, right?)

Then at the end of the month, I’m heading to Seattle for a gala weekend. My sister and brother-in-law are treating me to a showing of Shen Yun. 5,000 years of Chinese music and dancing, limousines, champagne, a wonderful dinner. Sounds like an adventure fit for Cinderella.

Even if rags and an out of season pumpkin are all that await me at the end of the Seattle trip, well, there is still a matter of the other 99 adventures I promised myself. I wonder what I will do next?

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Posted in being me, culture, life, relationships. Tags: adventures, best friend, embracing life, reunion, seeking adventure. 5 Comments »

Today I Am Officially a Writer

March 4, 2013 — Pat Bertram

First draft of A Spark of Heavenly Fire

I got serious about writing a little over a decade ago. That’s when I started writing novels as well as researching the craft of writing and the publishing industry. I finished writing my novels about seven or seven years ago, then concentrated on rewriting and polishing the manuscripts to make sure they were as good as I could possibly make them. Meantime, I sent out hundreds of query letters in an effort to find an agent or publisher.

You’d think all those years focused on the craft of writing, rewriting, editing, proofing, querying would qualify me to call myself a writer, but it was just something I did, not something I was, so I never gave myself the title.

Even after my first two books were published by Second Wind Publishing in 2009, I still didn’t identify myself as a writer, except in relation to the books. For example, Pat Bertram, author of More Deaths Than One. I now have five books published — four suspense novels and one book about grief — but I still didn’t call myself a writer. It seems sort of silly and, considering all the millions of writers who have a book listed on Amazon, makes me not the least bit special. And anyway, I don’t make a living off writing, which would, I think, be a major qualification to list “writer” as one’s occupation.

Today, I had to go to the bank to fill out some paperwork, and they asked my occupation. Oddly, the only thing that came to mind was “writer.” I laughed to myself and said sotto voce, “What the heck.” Then, louder, I told the clerk, “I am a writer.” (It’s a good thing they didn’t need to ask what my income was. They’d probably have laughed in my face.) Still, “writer” sounded so much more interesting than shrugging off the question about occupation with a brief comment about taking care of my father.

So now it’s official. I am a writer.

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Posted in culture, life, writing. Tags: becoming a writer, calling myself a writer, focus on writing, More Deaths Than One, occupation, Second Wind Publishing. 6 Comments »

Making End of Life Decisions

March 3, 2013 — Pat Bertram

Some of the hardest decisions to make when taking care of a person who is nearing the end of life are not dire life/death decisions, such as taking him off a respirator, but simple decisions that continue to haunt you long after the person is gone.

The hardest decision I had to make when it came to the end days of my life mate/soul mate was whether to take him to the hospice care center. The nurse suggested the move to give me time to rest (he had what is called “terminal restlessness” and kept getting out of bed; considering how unsteady he was on his feet, I had to get up with him.) He wasn’t ready to go, wasn’t ready to face the ending of his life, and yet knowing the truth of the matter — that he wouldn’t be coming home again — he still agreed to go. I, on the other hand, believed the nurse when she said he would be away just a few days to give me time to rest, but still, I felt horrible about agreeing to take him. Afterward, that decision haunted me. I wished I’d let him stay home one more day, especially since I didn’t sleep anyway.

The decision I face now in taking care of my father is even less dire, but infinitely more complicated. Until about a week ago, my father still answered the phone, eager to talk to anyone who called, but now we’ve unplugged the phone in his room because he doesn’t like to be awakened.

He spends most of his time sleeping, getting up a few times a day to eat something — an egg or a bit of jello or a few canned peach slices. He is willing to talk to his children during those times, so that’s not a problem, but he doesn’t want to see anyone. He is very fragile, and so I have been honoring his wishes. However, some of my siblings want to make sure they see him one last time, and this is where the decision lies.

When is the cut-off point where his wishes become secondary and the wishes of his children come first? When it’s close to the end, I suppose, and I don’t think he’s there quite yet. Although he doesn’t eat much and has developed an aversion to most of his favorite foods, he does still have an interest in eating, which is a good sign. He’s also alert when he’s awake, so he hasn’t quite begun removing himself from life. (He has no interest in reading the newspaper anymore, but I don’t consider the newspaper “life”.)

I hope I’m doing the right thing by continuing to honor my father’s wishes, and that the decision to do so won’t come back to haunt me. I hope, if I make the wrong decision (or make a wrong assessment about how much time my father has left), my siblings will forgive me.

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Posted in culture, life, relationships. Tags: end of life, end of life decisions, final visitations, honoring my father’s wishes, hospice care center, life/death decisions. 7 Comments »

Rubicon Ranch ~~ Prepare for Mayhem!

March 2, 2013 — Pat Bertram

I enjoy finding out how other writers approach their craft, and especially how they develop their characters. J J Dare, author of False Positive and False World, delights in creating evil characters. As a fellow collaborator in the Second Wind serialization, Rubicon Ranch, J J Dare created the monstrous victim in Rubicon Ranch: Necropieces, the second book of the series, along with a couple of his offspring. In her blog post Bad Wasps, J J Dare said of her two POV characters:

They’re bad. Bad to the bone. Bad in ninety-five percent of their molecular makeup. If an ice-cream flavor was named after them, it would be “Vinegar and Vinegar” and it would taste just as sour as it sounds.

They are evil, narcissistic, self-centered, selfish and plain mean. Both characters think nothing of climbing over the living and dying bodies of anyone in their way. They are Bad Wasps.

So, why did I write them this way? It’s not a reflection of me. I’m fairly mild, with only a bit of flair once in a while. And I’ve never wanted to murder my parents.

I’m glad she added those last two sentences. Someday J J and I will meet, and I’d hate to have to go to the meeting prepared for mayhem.

Seeing how much fun J J Dare has with her evil characters, I’d considered exchanging my character for a bad wasp (or perhaps revealing a waspish side, which I might someday do), but my character, Melanie Gray still has so much work to do that I can’t just dump the poor woman. She needs to find out who killed her husband and why, and she needs to resolve her feelings for the misogynist sheriff.

J J’s characters might not reflect her, but Melanie Gray is a lot like me. She’s a writer dealing with grief, she wanders in the desert, she’s fairly calm and passive though she can be riled. Even though she started as an alter ego (but younger) she turned out to be a world traveler, which I am not, and she has a penchant for finding dead bodies, which I don’t. Thank heavens for that! Being some sort of human cadaver dog has never been an aspiration of mine.

If you have not yet checked out Rubicon Ranch, now would be a good time. You can download the first book free in the ebook format of your choice here: Rubicon Ranch: Riley’s Story and you can follow the second book as we finish writing it here: Rubicon Ranch: Necropieces. And you will have to prepare for mayhem!

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Posted in books, writing. Tags: collaboration, J J Dare, Melanie Gray, Rubicon Ranch, Second Wind Publishing, victim, villain, writing evil characters. Leave a Comment »

Insurance Hell . . . As if Being Sick Isn’t Bad Enough

March 1, 2013 — Pat Bertram

I’m not one to air my feelings about government intervention (except in my novels, of course) but this whole thing about forcing United States citizens to buy health insurance is about as insane an idea as . . . well, as aspartame, and that got shoved down our throats, too.

The main problem with our health care system is the insurance racket, and the government wants to reward them for stupidity with our money? Sheesh. Case in point:

I am taking care of my 96-year-old father, and he’s recently taken a turn for the worse. He was in the hospital for pneumonia and various tests for about a week. Got out about eight days ago. The doctor prescribed a breathing treatment, but when I went to pick up the drugs at the pharmacy that night, they weren’t ready. Somehow, the doctor had forgotten to send in the prescriptions. Several calls and one personal visit to the doctor’s office later, the prescriptions were called in, and that’s when the fun really started.

The insurance refused to pay for the breathing treatment, so the doctor changed to a different one — one, moreover that the insurance company said was covered. I went to pick up the prescription and again, it wasn’t ready. Turns out this particular drug needed a doctor’s authorization. Say, what? Isn’t a prescription an authorization? Apparently not. Apparently, the insurance company wanted the specific reason why the doctor had prescribed that particular treatment. So I started making calls again, to the doctor’s office, trying to get them to do the authorization; to the pharmacy, trying to get them to do their part. Finally, the authorization was sent. But . . .

The insurance company told the pharmacy to bill Medicare, that they don’t handle any aerosol treatments. Huh? So what was the whole thing about changing medications to one that the insurance company does cover? Anyway, Medicare agreed to pay for the drug but . . .

Yep, another but. As of this year, Medicare has a $148 dollar per year deductable, which means my father ended up paying the whole bill of $119.00 out of pocket. He pays a fortune in insurance, a fortune in co-pays though his insurance policy, and yet because the insurance company refused to honor the prescription, he ended up bearing the full cost. A refill, of course, will be only thirty dollars or so, but the problem is that this replacement drug needs to be taken four times a day, every six hours, instead of two like the originally prescribed drug. It will be hard getting my father to do the treatment even once, so we will have a year’s supply of the drug, which means that any refills will also be at full cost.

So, if he has to pay the entire cost of the drug out of his own pocket, why weren’t we told this upfront so we could have just gotten the original prescription and been done with it?

This sort of situation is becoming way too common. I have a friend who suffers from advanced rheumatoid arthritis. One particular very expensive injection is keeping the disease at bay, allowing her to continue living without too much debilitation, and yet her insurance company refuses to pay for the shots any longer. The drug company ended up finding a sponsor for her. So what’s the point of having insurance if you have to beg someone to pay for a drug you need to survive?

And this is the insurance hell that everyone is going to be forced to endure. Cripes. As if being sick isn’t bad enough.

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Posted in culture, life. Tags: breathing treatment, co-pays, insurance companies, insurance racket, medicare, prescriptions. 10 Comments »

Striving For Clarity in Writing

February 28, 2013 — Pat Bertram

stage There seem to be two vociferous groups of writers nowadays:

1. Self-published writers who insist that they can do everything their way without regard to grammar rules, publishing conventions, and even readers.

2. Writers who want to be published by the major publishing houses, and who scrupulously follow every dictate in the hopes it will bring them the acclaim they strive for.

The first group of writers often strive for originality at the expense of readability. They take the easy way out by choosing limp words that demand to be propped up with adverbs and adjectives. Or they throw out grammar rules, which comes across not so much as being creative but as being too lazy to learn the right way. Grammar is not a straightjacket but a garment that flows softly around readers, keeping their attention on the story rather than the structure. If readers have to read and reread a paragraph to try to make sense of it, then the author has not done her job.

Some of these authors believe that readers should have to work to make sense of their story, that it’s okay if readers are pulled out of the story to look up an unfamiliar word, or to admire a particularly well-turned phrase, but readers for the most part want to be immersed in a story. If you’re watching a play, you want to see the characters, the action, the set. You do not want to be shown the backstage bickering or the ugly scaffolding. You simply want to be immersed in the play. (Unless, of course, the play is Noises Off, in which case all the bickering and scaffolding are part of the story.) And the same goes for books.

The second group of writers strives for perfection at the cost of originality, especially originality of style or voice. These writers are often too assiduous in their dislike of “was”, “it”, “ly” adverbs, adjectives, or any number of words that make our writing seem amateurish. Yes, an abundance of such words does make our writing seem amateurish and even hard to read, but removing every single was or it or modifier makes for a stilted style.

The truth of good writing lies somewhere in the middle of those two groups.

As I read in an old book called The Practical Stylist by Sheridan Baker: “Clarity is the first aim; economy the second; grace the third; dignity the fourth. Our writing should be a little strange, a little out of the ordinary, a little beautiful with words and phrases not met everyday, but seeming as right and natural as grass.”

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Posted in books, How to, writing. Tags: clarity in writing, readability, self-published writers, traditionally published writers, truth of good writing, what is good writing, writing style. 7 Comments »

Grief at Thirty-Five Months

February 27, 2013 — Pat Bertram

Today marks the thirty-fifth month since the death of my life mate/soul mate, yet today is a day like any other. There is no particular upsurge in grief, no particular focus on his death or my loss (two separate things).

This “acceptance” of the day is not a positive step forward so much as the combination of a couple of non-related factors. For one, I’m dealing with a major sinus infection, and upsurges in grief and upsurges in ill health don’t seem to happen at the same time, probably because both take an enormous toll on the body so one gives way to the other.

Even old grief, grief that is past the first year of raw pain, is stressful because you walk an unsteady path in an alien world, and you have to make mental compensations to travel that path, the same way you have to make physical compensations if your ankle is broken. During that first year, a person who has lost a spouse has 25% higher death rate from all causes than those who are not grieving, and even beyond that first year, the bereft seem to have a higher rate of illness since the stress of grief affects the immune system. (Sometimes it even seems as if there could be a bit of body/mind interaction, where the mind gets tired of grieving, and so allows the body to become sick, though that isn’t what happened in my case since I haven’t had a major upsurge of grief in a while, just upswings of sadness.)

The other factor involved in making this day less emotional than expected is that I’m looking after my aged father, who has taken a turn for the worse, and I find myself falling into the same mindset I had when I watched my life mate/soul mate die. In such a case, you take a step back from your emotions, wait to see what happens, do the best you can in any crisis, and bear the burden of helplessness as lightly as possible.

Seeing myself getting into this mental state again makes me realize that I did the best I could three years ago, that so much I regretted or felt guilty about was beyond my control. I’d worked past those concerns, so they haven’t been haunting me lately, but now I have a graphic illustration of truth. I did the best I could for him, just as I will do the best for my father.

The thing I regretted most about my mate’s death is that I took it for granted. He was ill for a long time, and after a while, his dying became a way of life. I see that happening again, that my father’s aging and inevitable dying is becoming a way of life. My life.

The odd thing for me is that I’ve spent the last three years trying to embrace life again, to get away from the stasis of dying and grief, but now, willy nilly, I am back in neutral. Not looking forward. Not looking back. Just taking life each day as it comes, even if the day marks the thirty-fifth month of my grief.

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Posted in culture, grief, life. Tags: grief and death, grief and illness, grief and stress, new grief, old grief, taking dying for granted, thrity-five months of grief. 6 Comments »

It Takes Courage to Grieve

February 26, 2013 — Pat Bertram

People have often mentioned how courageous I’ve been by writing about my grief, but the truth is, for the most part, it didn’t take any courage. At the beginning, I was in such incredible pain and bewildered by all I was feeling, that I tried to make sense of all the emotions and physical symptoms the only way I knew how — by writing.

There were two times, though, where it did take courage. The first time was when my grief continued far beyond what I had expected, and I was afraid people would think I was weak or self-pitying or self-indulgent, unable to move beyond the tragedy. I am moving, but at my own pace.

The truth is, when you lose your mate, you lose not only the person who meant more to you than any other, the person who connected you to the world, you also lose your best friend, your confidante, your support, your sense of self, your hopes and dreams, your shared world, your faith in a universe that makes sense. The changes are so vast and so sudden, it can take years to process them all.

I’d been honest about everything I’d been feeling, so I continued telling the truth about my grief even when I thought it made me seem pathetic. No one wants to show a weak side to the world, but someone has to explain how grief works, to show the ramifications of a certain type of loss. We are steeped in a culture of couplehood. Many songs and movies extol the joys of meeting the one person who makes life worth living, yet when you lose that person, you are expected to continue as if it didn’t matter. Well, it does matter. And it matters more when you lose that person to death. It’s almost impossible to fathom the absence of a person who once breathed the same air you did, who was there through every crisis and triumph, and who now is simply . . . gone. (Well, if I’m going to tell the truth, then I should tell the truth. It’s not almost impossible. It’s totally impossible.)

I’m past worrying about how people see me and my grief, so I’m back to not needing courage to write about how I am doing. I’m just continuing to chronicle the journey of a woman who is trying to rebuild her life after an immeasurable loss, both the steps forward into hope and the steps backward into sorrow and tears.

The second time I needed courage was when I published Grief: The Great Yearning, the story of my first year of grief. It’s one thing to write about grief in the backwaters of the blogosphere, and a completely different thing to put my grief out there for the whole world to read. Well, the whole world isn’t reading the book, so that’s not an issue, but more importantly, those who do read my story find they are reading their own story. Although grief is unique to each person, the pain and angst and bitter losses are the same. And so is the way we make this unwanted and terrible journey . . . one step at a time.

And that takes courage.

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Posted in culture, grief, life, writing. Tags: grief and courage, grief and loss, Grief: The Great Yearning, loss of a soul mate, loss of a spouse, writing about grief. 4 Comments »

Are Book Trailers a Good Idea?

February 25, 2013 — Pat Bertram

rainbow Someone asked me for advice on how to get people to see his book trailer and then called me negative when I explained how difficult it would be. I admit I’m burned out when it comes to promotion. I’ve spent the past five years researching book promotion in all its many facets, tried hundreds of different things, and I still don’t know how to turn a sleepy seller into a best seller, though I know a lot about what doesn’t work, or at least what doesn’t work for me. Other people do the same sorts of things I’ve been doing and find a pot of gold at the end of the promotion rainbow, but I’m still searching for the rainbow.

Book promotion is a lot like the house that Jack built. You have a book you want to sell, so you create a video trailer to promote it. Then you have to promote the video that promotes the book you want to sell. Then, you join Facebook to get more viewers for your video, so now you have to promote your FB page that promotes the video that promotes the book you want to sell. And on and on and on.

Some people can just throw a book out there and make a fortune on Amazon, but the rest of us have to promote. Have to find a way to get people interested in us and then in our books. As I said in What Works When It Comes to Book Promotion?, the first authors to blog or use the various social networking sites to promote their books found a strong readership, but now all of those means of promotion are so common that they are simply an expected part of being an author.

It’s the same with book trailers. The first people who created book trailers to promote their books did well, but now video promos are just an expected part of being an author. Even if the video is great, the problem is getting people to see the video.

Sometimes people will stumble across a book trailer when they are surfing Utube, but it’s not as if people by the thousands will be searching for his book trailer. I wanted to hear Madonna’s “Playground” the other day, so I used the search function to find it since I knew what I wanted to listen to, but what if I didn’t know there was a song out there I’d like to hear? How do I find it?

The problem is, you have to promote the book trailer as assiduously as you promote the book. If I knew how to get people to see his trailers, I’d be good enough at promotion that I’d be selling millions of books.

Still, book trailers are a good idea, and the better they are made, the better they will do. I don’t want to discourage him from making his video because . . . who knows? His might catch people’s attention and go viral. At the very least, it will give him something other than the book itself to promote.

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