Elaine Marie Cooper Author

Historical Fiction That Grabs Your Heart and Feeds Your Soul

Bethany's Calendar

Ten Years and One Day Later …

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Ten years and one day ago is a date I will not soon forget. It was the day I received an assignment that changed my life.

I realized this week that my family and I would be commemorating the 14th anniversary of my daughter Bethany’s home-going to heaven—always such a difficult anniversary to bear. Try as I might to be strong, the tears seem to ebb and flow like a turbulent tide during a hurricane.

Then I realized, the date of October 20, 2017, was significant for another reason: It was ten years to the day that I “heard” the call to write my first novel.

I wrote about this event in the memoir of my daughter’s battle with brain cancer, Bethany’s Calendar:

 

The story of my daughter's journey with cancer.
The story of my daughter’s journey with cancer.

On the fourth anniversary of Bethany’s death, I lay in bed without any intentions of getting up. I wanted to cover my head and hide from the world. I hated these dates of remembrance.

But God had other plans for me that day. With an inaudible voice speaking to my heart, I “heard” a very strange assignment. I was to write a novel about my ancestors during the American Revolution. The message was so clear to me yet so strange that I was embarrassed to tell Steve.

After all, although I had previously been a freelance writer for newspapers and magazines, I was now a fulltime nurse. Besides, the only time I had tried to write after Bethany’s death, I had melted into a pool of tears. I never wanted to write again.

And now I was being directed to write a historical novel. Okay, so I love history and family genealogy. But this made no sense.

Since our ways are not God’s ways, I decided to go to the used bookstore and start looking for books about American history. And the rest became part of my history as one novel turned into two, then two turned into three.

 

I wrote Bethany’s Calendar in 2014. Since then I’ve written three more historical novels and I am researching my next one.

Did I say that our ways are not God’s ways? See Isaiah 55:8-9. I cannot fathom His ways nor his purposes in all the plans he has for me. Yet I know that, if I am obedient to His Word and His sometimes bewildering beckonings, then I will find His purpose for my life. However strange His requests may sometimes seem.

Have you ever felt the Holy Spirit prompting you to do something unexpected? I’d love to hear your story.

Returning to Saratoga

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It hardly seems possible that June is less than three months away! When I first began setting up events in the Saratoga Springs area, June seemed like a decade away. Yet here I am planning my tour and anxiously awaiting book signings, speaking events, and visits with historians! It is a history geek’s dream! 😉

If you are interested in having me speak at your church, library or women’s group in the upstate New York area, please feel free to contact me. I speak on everything from Colonial American history to being a patient caregiver and advocate. (Bethany’s Calendar)

You can email me at elainemariecooper@yahoo.com

Be blessed!

9781938499142

The story of my daughter's journey with cancer.
The story of my daughter’s journey with cancer.

Webinar Interview – “Bethany’s Calendar”

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I can think of nothing in my life that was as devastating as losing my daughter to brain cancer. And when I felt that inner “call” to write about that experience, I wished I could ignore it. But I knew it was pointless to argue with God.

The result was the book known as “Bethany’s Calendar.” It won the Selah award for best nonfiction memoir in 2015, but the award itself pales with the impact the book has made in encouraging others and giving hope in the midst of despair.

 

This past week I had the privilege of being interviewed about my daughter, the impact on my family, and the ways the Lord has used my daughter’s testimony to inspire many.

You can watch the webinar at this link anytime. Just click here and go to Episode 32. I pray you are blessed.

The story of my daughter's journey with cancer.
The story of my daughter’s journey with cancer.

 

Fallacy of Closure

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I only half paid attention to the news the other day but one word I heard caught my attention: Closure. It was made in reference to the killing of the terrorists who were responsible for the embassy slaughter in Benghazi. Now the family members of the victims could have a sense of closure, the report stated.

I bristled at the suggestion. Closure? When you’ve lost a loved one?

What exactly does closure mean? The dictionary defines it as a sense of resolution or conclusion. The term was brought into popular use in the 1990’s when the “Need for Closure Scale” was adopted by behavioral scientists. It was developed for individuals with a high need for order and predictability in their lives.

What a fallacy. Our lives can never be predictable. Anyone who has lived even a few short years understands the unexpected can happen. Trains are delayed. Flights cancelled. Car accidents take lives. Cancer is discovered. Our lives could be described as an “adventure” perhaps—but predictable?

After writing the memoir of my daughter, Bethany, who died of a brain tumor, I was asked if writing the book somehow gave me a sense of closure.

 

The story of my daughter's journey with cancer.
The story of my daughter’s journey with cancer.

I told this person that I find closure an interesting word. It seems to imply that one can get over the death of a child or other loved one who is torn from our lives here on earth. In some ways, I think it helps onlookers be more comfortable. They don’t have to act like the grieving person still suffers.

 

In fact there is a part of those who are left behind that will always suffer.

 

If you lose a limb, you learn to adjust to its loss. You make accommodations for its absence. Yet the nerve cells in your brain are still connected to that limb. Often, amputees talk about “phantom pain” that makes them feel the actual presence of that missing body part. And yet, the limb is gone. Never forgotten. Always missed.

 

The fallacy of closure is that one never resolves the heartache. It becomes accepted as a part of your new life. But the pain never closes.

Des Moines Oct 0865

 

 

When God’s Plans Don’t Fit

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The four-year-old girl approached her mother in tears.  “Mommy, this new sheet won’t fit!”

The mom quickly explained to her distraught daughter that the small cloth bag she was holding was not the new sheets. The child’s new pink floral sheets were in the laundry being washed. What the little girl held was the bag they had come in from the store.

Her mom and I giggled at the child’s misunderstanding. Yet I began to see myself in the child’s view of what she was holding.

Often our lives seem a poor fit with our expectations. Who would have thought, when my own daughter was four, that at age twenty-four she would die of a brain tumor? That did not measure up with my expectations.

“Lord, this cancer doesn’t fit my plans!”

Like the four-year-old holding an empty bag that crushed her dreams for a beautiful new bed, I cried to my Father that this was the wrong choice. Yet God tenderly reassured me that he was preparing something greater—an eternity of benefit that in His perfect wisdom would reap untold blessings for many.

God in His infinite wisdom knew that life would reveal many trials that seem so wrong and out of place. That is why He said, “’My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, ‘ declares the Lord.” Isaiah 55:8 NIV

At such times, we lean on Him and bring our tears before Him. And like the four-year-old’s parent offered solace in her misunderstanding, Jesus sends His Holy Spirit for us to bring comfort and reassurance of His perfect provision.

“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time.” 1 Peter 1: 3-5 NIV

The story of my daughter's journey with cancer.
The story of my daughter’s journey with cancer.

True Valentines Are Not Grey

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All the recent publicity involving the release of a supposed romantic movie involving sadism has caused many to pause and consider what true romance really is.

In my personal experience, my committed relationship has involved watching my husband be self-sacrificing and compassionate. It’s the complete opposite of the Hollywood glorification of self-satisfaction and cruelty. My own marriage of nearly forty years has shown me that a true Valentine is one who serves others rather than themselves.

When our middle child and only daughter was diagnosed with a terminal brain tumor in 2002, my husband became my hero. His days were spent helping me to cope with this horrible disease. He filled in to care for her when I needed a break. He accompanied us to as many doctor’s appointments as his work schedule allowed. He voluntarily missed our son’s graduation from Officer’s Candidate School so I could attend. No dad wants to miss that. But Steve did—for me.

When we knew the brain tumor was coming back after a temporary remission, it was Steve who had the strength to sit and hold her while she cried, and while I paced the room, too frantic to sit. When she could no longer care for herself and was bed bound, Steve helped me feed her and keep her clean. And when she passed away, Steve wept over our loss with as many tears as I did.

Can you imagine the “hero” of “Fifty Shades of Grey” doing all this—someone so consumed with their past that all they can do is control, belittle and hurt the woman they supposedly love?

I’ve heard it said that this lead character has had a difficult past. My response is, “Who hasn’t?”  My husband came from a broken home and his mother died of cancer when he was a teenager. But he allowed Jesus to heal his hurts, save his soul and become a new creation in Christ. He became the sort of hero who could help care for a dying daughter.

So for those who think a dapper looking man in a suit who wants what HE wants is heroic, think again. The real heroes are helping others in the battlefield of life.

 

The story of my daughter's journey with cancer.
The story of my daughter’s journey with cancer.