Light In The Darkness

There is Light in the Demise of the Undertaker’s Wife.

Loss is something we all have to face at some stage in our lives, whether it is the loss of a home, job, partner, parent, child, lover, pet, or relationships. The list is endless. How many hairs do we lose from our head each time we wash it? Judging by the mass in the plughole in my shower, a lot!

We all grieve in different ways. It’s a solitary experience and can be a very lonely one. The ending of my marriage was one of the biggest losses of my life.  It also forced me to confront other previously un-mourned losses.

Luckily for me it was in the wake of this loss that I found my true passion – writing. I have been able to use my writing to explore and process grief. However, when I started to write the short stories in my new collection, ‘Demise of the Undertaker’s Wife,’ I didn’t consciously set out to write about loss.

It was only as the collection started to take shape that I realised the overriding theme is loss and redemption. All the stories feature characters who struggle with loss in some form or another and sometimes resort to desperate measures to assuage their grief.

Thankfully some of the characters find solace and the support they need when they reach out to others for help. So whilst there is darkness in the collection, there is also a bit of light just as I have found light in my darkness. I hope you, dear reader, will always find the light in your darkness.

Here is a synopsis of some of the stories in the collection;

Demise of the Undertaker’s Wife: An undertaker discovers his wife was having an affair with his best friend who has just died and confronts her in his funeral home beside the open coffin.

Goodbye, Mr.Fox: A farmer is in danger of being evicted from the house he shared with his partner for many years because his partner, who recently passed away, neglected to make a will.

Half-A-Boy: Set in the 1950’s this tells the story of a teenager whose brother fell of a horse, sustained a serious head injury and was put in the local lunatic asylum

Our Mothers Lied: A lesbian nun loses the one woman that made religious life bearable and must decide whether to leave the convent or stay.

WLTM: A lonely widower realizes he’s in love with the man he plays golf with every Saturday.

French Cream: A woman is contacted by her ex-husband after many years. He tells her, he is dying from pancreatic cancer and she must decide if she wants to be his life again.

A Bit of Light: A lonely widow plans to end her life so she can be with her husband again but the Angel Gabriel has other plans.

Permission Granted: A widower must decide whether to commit to the woman he’s been seeing for a year when his eighteen-year-old daughter leaves for college.

Iscariot: A prison inmate learns that his penpal of five years has passed away and struggles with his violent alter-ego.

Demise of the Undertaker’s Wife published by The Blue Nib will be released on the 15^th September, 2019. Pre-orders will be available very soon.

Special thanks to Claire Loader for allowing me to use her photo of Meadow of Graves, Inishmore, Co. Galway for the cover.