Description
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About the author:
www. ShayLush.com
What inspired you to write your book?
I grew up by the beach I wanted to reflect that lifestyle in my writing.
Here is a short sample from the book:
The bones of my mother’s face are as fragile as eggshell, the mortician has done fabulous work, pieced back together painstakingly, she almost looks whole. But jumping from a high cliff onto rugged wave swept rocks causes hideous damage. We are told not to touch her, how can we not, when every impulse is to take her into our arms and hold her, kiss her lips, make her better. She lies as if in state, while we stand and look, each with our own secret thoughts, all with moist eyes, all searching for answers as to why we stand here, here where we should never have any right to be.
The funeral parlour has a unique atmosphere, a sombre empty essence that causes all speech to be conducted in hushed tones and movement taken with slow deliberate care. How long should we stand at her side, what is both appropriate and allowed? Is there a time limit to how long grief should take?
There seems to be an unspoken sequence to the whole procedure, and we are gently ushered from one area to the next, from viewing her then to grieving her in an adjacent chapel. All done with due reverence and respect, but still with a steadfast tread toward a final conclusion.
I look at my brothers Liam and Tate, though the twin’s are only 18 months younger than me, I suddenly feel the weight of responsibility settling on my shoulders. One thing I was certain of was that the Kelly brothers would all need to grow and lean on each other during the coming months, myself shouldering most of the burden now that I was the head of the family, such as it is. Of course it is a situation no child should ever have to be in. I glimpse a measure of the turmoil within, looking into their red rimmed bloodshot eyes, and discern a slight tremble of their lips as they fought back any outside display of grief. Surely they are asking the same questions that I myself ponder. How did it come to this? Were we, any of us, complicit in allowing circumstances to develop whereby she felt the only way to find peace from inner turmoil was through eternal silence? Did a cry for help in some previously dismissed behaviour go by unchallenged by those of us who had the power to assist?
So many questions crowd my mind, swirling with the fog of emotion rort from such a raw, violent event. I concentrate on my own thoughts, quietly peering from one brother to the other, silently willing one of them to put sense to any of the questions which crowd my mind, but no answer is forthcoming and my musings are met by silence. She’d had a shit life capped off by a shit ending leaving the three of us well and truly in the lurch. But she was still our mother regardless of her life choices. Still feeling the pain of her parting I took my brothers by the shoulders ushering them out of the chapel; out to the start of a whole new chapter of our lives, knowing full well that life for the Kelly brothers will never be the same again.
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