Linda K Sienkiewicz

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You are here: Home / Books / Courageous Memoir of a Restless Life

Courageous Memoir of a Restless Life

August 23, 2021 By Linda K Sienkiewicz

Self examination isn’t easy.

Writing about it is even harder.

Nancy Owen Nelson was an army brat whose military father struggled with depression and alcoholism. She says about her family constantly moving from army base to army base, including Alaska, Indiana, Texas and Oklahoma: “I was angry and sad. I don’t think I really blamed anybody. Why should I? It was always like this. I had to go wherever I was told to go, whenever the orders came.”

No wonder she felt a need to exert control over her own destination as an adult.

Once I began her memoir, Divine Aphasia, I couldn’t put it down. Not everyone examines their life with unflinching clarity or reaches a place of forgiveness, in this case for her father and herself.

Nelson’s fourth husband, Ted, was her greatest challenge, an intelligent yet distant man who in many ways mirrored her father. Perhaps it was through Ted that she reached a level of self-realization that she may not have otherwise. The lessons we learn in life are up to us.

Remarkably, through her soul-searching while lurching from one ill-fated marriage to the next (until her fifth), Nelson managed to earn a PhD, carve out a career, raise a little boy, and emerge with wisdom and self-awareness that many people never achieve. Navigating such a life takes courage and honesty.

Divine Aphasia: A Woman’s Search for her Father

The preface to Nelson’s memoir reads:

I have been married five times, the last one twenty years and counting. Two of my former husbands committed suicide. Now I know that these marriages were a pilgrimage to find, to fully understand my father, who died at the age of sixty-two. His problems with depression and addictions led to his early death. When Ted, my fourth husband, committed suicide two years after our divorce, I sought to understand why I married so many times and why I married Ted under challenging circumstances.

Ultimately, I realized I could only save myself.

The little girl who for most of her life ran after her father, crying, Daddy, wait for me! finally realizes: “I can stop looking for Dad. He’s been here all the time.” She gave a part of herself to each person she lost. ~Ann Putnam Ph.D., author of Full Moon at Noontide 

Divine Aphasia “provides an avenue to understand how a childhood with a conflicted father can cast patterns of trauma-based decisions into that child’s adult relationships.” ~ Vicky Young, Ph.D., Faculty, Undergraduate and Graduate Programs; Human Development, Psychology, and Counselor Education, Prescott College, Arizona.

Nelson’s memoir is available on Amazon (Kindle and paperback) and signed copies can be purchased through the author’s website. ISBN-13:‎ 978-1640660960; 200 pages

About Nancy Owen Nelson

Nancy has published articles in several academic journals and anthologies and has co-edited and edited academic books. Her poetry is published in What Wildness is This?, South Dakota Review and Graffiti Rag, and her creative nonfiction pieces in Mom’s Writing Literary Journal, Lalitamba Journal, and Roll (Telling Our Stories Press). Her memoir, Searching for Nannie B: Connecting Three Generations of Southern Women, was published by Ardent Writer Press, and her poetry books. Her poetry books are My Heart Wears No Colors, published by FutureCycle Press, and Portals: A Memoir in Verse, by Kelsay Books.

Recording of Nancy Owen Nelson’s Book Launch for Divine Aphasia

Thank you for visiting Linda’s blog.

Linda K. Sienkiewicz is a writer, poet, and artist.
Learn more about her award winning novel, In the Context of Love.
Learn more about her picture book, Gordy and the Ghost Crab.

Learn more about her poetry chapbook, Security

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Filed Under: Books, Grief and Loss Tagged With: depression, memoir, nonfiction, suicide

Comments

  1. Barbara Rebbeck says

    August 23, 2021 at 8:11 am

    Wow! This is a life worth reading. Ordering it now. Thanks, you two.

    • Linda K Sienkiewicz says

      August 23, 2021 at 10:19 am

      You’re welcome!

  2. Patti Eddington says

    August 23, 2021 at 9:03 am

    Wow. This sounds amazing. Thanks for the tip.

    • Linda K Sienkiewicz says

      August 23, 2021 at 10:19 am

      You’re so welcome, Patti. Thanks for reading.

  3. Jack Ridl says

    August 23, 2021 at 11:27 am

    This is a book for all of us. Her courageous exploration and revelation gives us courage. I wish I had an adequate means by which to say what all is implied by “Thank you.”
    Jack Ridl

    • Linda K Sienkiewicz says

      August 23, 2021 at 12:40 pm

      I felt the same, Jack. Thanks for visiting 😊 Stay well!

About Linda

Award- winning writer, poet & artist. Cynical optimist. Super klutz. Corgi fan. Author of two novels, a picture book which she wrote and illustrated, and five poetry chapbooks. More here.

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