Suzanne Stewart
Staff Writer
When her mom passed away in May, Breanna Sharp Butcher, of Hillsboro, was seeking help to deal with her grief and in that search, she found her writing voice.
Butcher tried to find books about grief and losing a parent at a young age, but nothing seemed to help. So instead, she decided to write about it herself.
Those musings became the book, “Lessons in the Shadows.”
“There were so many struggles and things,” she said. “There wasn’t really anything that was raw and had real emotion, so I decided to write my own book, and it has really helped a lot.”
In the book, Butcher writes about helping family members deal with a loss, as well as how to celebrate things such as holidays, birthdays and weddings without your loved one.
All things that Butcher herself has experienced.
“I planned my wedding without my mom,” she said. “The wedding was a big part. Everyone dreams about having a wedding with their mom, and I didn’t get that. There were a lot of major events that happened after that, so it really helped to pour out my words.”
After the loss of her mother, Butcher said she was the strong one in the family, always there for everyone else. She went into “do this” mode where she did for others, but didn’t really help herself, until she sat down at the computer and put her feelings into words.
“I thought it was just going to be a Word doc, and it was kind of my escape to get my words out and talk about the things I was feeling, but then I decided to publish it,” she said.
That decision was made after Butcher shared the book with a friend who also lost her mother.
“I let her read it and she was like, ‘this could help so many people,’” Butcher said.
She admits she had no idea how to publish her own book, but she persevered and it is now available on Amazon.
“I’m glad it’s out there now,” Butcher said. “I hope it finds the right hands.”
Butcher opens the book with a “Note from the Author” which acts as an introduction to her experiences and what readers can expect to find in the following chapters.
“There is no guidebook for grief,” she wrote. “No map. No right way to move through a world that suddenly feels unfamiliar. When my mom died, I wasn’t handed clarity or strength or wisdom. I was handed the pieces of a life I loved, and asked to find my way forward one breath, one choice, one wave at a time.”
Throughout the book, Butcher writes about joyous occasions that are different now that her mom has passed and how she dealt with having celebrations without her.
“It was barely a month since my Mom had passed and the idea of celebration so soon after losing her felt impossible,” Butcher wrote. “Birthdays were her thing. She loved birthdays, not her own, but mine. She always went out of her way to make sure I felt seen and celebrated. The balloons, the streams, the banners strung across the living room, the way she made a huge deal out of little things, which was her language to me.
“She loved seeing me happy, and she made sure birthdays were full of life,” she continued. “Without her, it felt wrong.”
Butcher never thought she would become a writer. She was a teacher and is currently in school for teaching, but she has realized just how important writing is to her.
It was something her mother knew she would succeed doing.
“That’s kind of what my mom wanted me to do,” Butcher said. “She loved my writing. Every time I wrote something, she was like, ‘everybody needs to hear this.
“‘I’d say, ‘you’re a little biased,’” she added, laughing. “I’m glad that I’m finally doing what she wanted me to do.”
While she is a full-time student, Butcher is also a full-time writer. She is now working on a fiction book she hopes to publish.
“The title right now is ‘The World After Midnight,’ and it’s about a girl who gets sucked into a world at midnight and when the sun rises, she gets pushed back into the real world, Butcher said. “She fights these battles when she gets sucked into the world at midnight and then realizes that the real world is not much better.
“It’s in the works,” she added. “We’ll see where it goes.”
“Lessons in the Shadows” can be found on Amazon in paperback and e-Book form. It is free to those who have Kindle Direct Publishing.
