Tuesday, October 14, 2014

#Excerpt from WHERE HAVE I BEEN ALL MY LIFE? by Cheryl Rice @RiceonLife #Memoir #NonFiction

Feeding myself would mean acknowledging my mother was gone—forever—as in not ever coming back. I wasn’t ready. I did not approve. The lost and abandoned child in me was convinced that if I got thin enough, or sick enough, she’d have to come back to feed me. That’s what moms do.

They feed their children. They don’t leave them. Surely she would see how much I still needed her. She wouldn’t let me.

Eventually, though I desperately wanted my mom to save me, it was my commitment to my stepdaughter, Becca, that did. I realized I could continue my hunger strike and starve myself—possibly to death—but not only would doing so not bring my mother back, it would threaten my ability to nurture Becca at a critical time in her young life. I would be a terrible role model for a girl just growing into her own adolescent body. She had already been deeply affected when the mother of one of her closest friends was shipped to an eating-disorders clinic on the other side of the country for three months. If I didn’t stop this protest and begin eating (and eventually learn to feed all of my hungers), I would have to leave Becca too. And while my mother was gone, the mothering instinct in me was not.

So I made the first truly nourishing decision of my motherless life and began to eat.

Where Have I Been All My Life

Where Have I Been All My Life? is a compelling memoir recounting one woman’s journey through grief and a profound feeling of unworthiness to wholeness and healing. It begins with the chillingly sudden death of Rice’s mother, and is followed by her foray into the center of mourning.

With wisdom, grace, and humor, Rice recounts the grief games she plays in an effort to resurrect her mother; her efforts to get her therapist, who she falls desperately in love with, to run away with her; and the transformation of her husband from fantasy man to ordinary guy to superhero. In the process, she experiences aching revelations about her family and her past—and realizes what she must leave behind, and what she can carry forward with her.

Buy Now @ Amazon
Genre – Memoir
Rating – PG-13
More details about the author
Connect with Cheryl Rice through Facebook & Twitter

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