Coming in May:

Author Dee Dee Rapp
Dear Mom: Remembering, Celebrating, Healing

Dee Dee will be with us to discuss her book of letters to Mom.

Here's her message to you:

Happy May to Baby Boomer Women Everywhere!

I am thrilled to spend May with you as Dotsie’s featured author! We celebrate moms on Mother’s Day and I’d like to spend May with you to help you take a journey of remembering and celebrating your mother’s gifts.

I know firsthand the pain of sudden loss, and I know the joy of celebrating the gifts of the one we’ve lost. My mom died very suddenly, just before Christmas, in 1990. No goodbyes, no closure. On the ninth anniversary of her death, I saw Christmas tree ornaments she had made as “gifts” and wondered what I’d say to her if she were still alive.

Listening to a voice that encouraged me to go to my computer, I found my fingers writing “Dear Mom.” Tears flowed as words appeared on the screen. I wrote another letter, cried, laughed, and kept writing until late spring. Friends encouraged me to share the letters, and five years later, I published Dear Mom: Remembering, Celebrating, Healing.

Dear Mom offers heartfelt stories that guide a journey we’ll all take. First, writing letters that allow you to remember and celebrate a Mom’s life, what I call “narrative healing.” Second, identifying the gifts of every Mom’s life: the lessons and values that make us who we are today (including her plastic pink flamingoes!). Third, and maybe the best part, once claimed, consciously passing those gifts on to our children and grandchildren.

I was transformed by looking not at what I’d lost, but at the gifts Mom gave me. My thanks came in the form of letters nine years after Mom died. Don’t wait. May is a perfect month to honor your Mom for her gifts with flowers and letters. Write your mom a letter. Submit it via my web site www.DearMomBook.com and enter the Dear Mom Writing Contest. Whether your mom is alive or has passed on, you will benefit from writing a letter of thanks.

Coming May 1st.

You can order her book at her site, www.dearmombook.com

[ May 15, 2006, 10:33 PM: Message edited by: Dotsie ]