Footprints Along the Path

My best friend used to tell others, why should I pity myself, it’s not going to give me my leg back. Mimmi was a double amputee partial foot, and right leg below the knee but don’t think for a moment that stopped her until one call confirmed what my gut already told me. She was gone, whole once more. I grieved for myself but more than that I grieved for her young son.

Life has changed for me since then, and I have grown. People come in and out of your life, but not without leaving footprints on the pathway.

Just this last Saturday I turned forty. I can still remember when forty seemed incomprehensible. My best friend never made it to forty, she died at thirty seven.

My birthday was a reminder that I had been given an opportunity. I had a calling, and wonderful friends and loved ones who support that calling. I’m a daughter, a sister an Auntie, a cousin and a friend, and I’m a writer, a writer who tries her best to offer hope in the written word.

I have a family who loves and supports me, friends who encourage me at the moment I feel like giving up.  It’s not easy, some think being an author is an easy thing, you just sit down and write. Simple, but boy you couldn’t be more wrong, writers are researchers, they are detectives.

My niece and her Dad got me a computer for my birthday, they didn’t say your dream is ridiculous. They never really have, my first book was published when Amber was little she grew up reading my poetry, and proudly showing off her copy of my book to my teachers, my family is the same way. That is not to say everyone supports me, I’ve been asked when I will get a “real job”. Which I simply have learned to laugh off.

I have been asked too why I write what I write, you should stay away from certain subjects but I write what is on my heart, and though many of my stories deal with tough times, tragedies they are not without hope.  Just as people who have blessed me by their presence have left footprints in my life, I am called to leave footprints on the page.

(C) Michelle R Kidwell

11.29.2017