I spent 20 years as a funeral director, longing to fulfill my dream of being a writer.
"A Writer's Life Begins At 40," read the headline in Writer's Digest Magazine. "So, that's why I haven't been published yet," I thought wryly, just months before my 40th birthday.
Having spent most of the previous 20 years in a career as a funeral director, I wondered when I would live my dream of being a writer. “If not now, when?” began to echo loudly in my head. From the time I could first hold a pen it was my dream to make a living from the written word. As a child, I was awed by the power of books and the worlds they opened. To escape the abuse of my adoptive parents, I’d seek the shelter of my bedroom and some semblance of security in the reassurances that my collection of books brought me. Books promised that there was a big world out there, in which all things were possible.
My school years were filled with creative writing classes, book clubs and stories that I was forever working on and getting published in the school paper. Our school’s monthly "book report" assignment was my favorite. My sixth grade teacher, Mrs. Silverman, a genteel lady and a no-nonsense educator, further instilled in me a respect for the written word. Each week, I painstakingly wrote that book report over and over, trying to perfect it. Her high standards added a degree of difficulty to the work. But it was sheer bliss, when along with a grade of “A,” Mrs. Silverman would compliment my work in a short notation. The feedback I did not get at home, I received from Mrs. Silverman’s mentoring in the classroom.
By high school, I had no doubt that my destiny was to be a published author. As a teen, I was forever telling my friends that one day I was going to write a book. Unlike some of my girlfriends, I did not dream of a gala wedding and the proverbial white picket fence, but rather of signing my name in a book at the local bookstore. As an English major in college, I was on my way to what I thought was a career with the written word until, to everyone's surprise, an after school job in a funeral home changed my plans. I decided to become a funeral director and enrolled in mortuary school. While I loved the idea of being a writer, my boss at the funeral home said he believed writing was too risky an aspiration, especially if I wanted to make a living at it. Lacking the self confidence to pursue a writing career, I gave up on my dream and plunged into a career in funeral service. At the time, this was one of the most nontraditional careers for women imaginable.
