Writing this story, I felt utterly vulnerable, then overwhelmed when it was published. Readers poured out their experiences with highly driven parents, and literary agents contacted me about writing a memoir.
I dove into my family’s history, and each interview opened new secrets and sources.
Just before the 2008 economic crash, I left the AJC to pursue the book tentatively titled “Trophy Girl.” “You could save someone’s life!” Dad said, but I only hoped to inoculate my children from repeating my breakdown. Instead, one of them has experienced far greater psychiatric struggles at the same age. Today as a writer and single parent, I am humbled. Is my daily caregiving enough? Will this child discover that life is worth living? Can I accept whatever happens?
Being a mom, and supporting my family as a senior editor at Emory University, takes precedence over “Trophy Girl.”
Dad and I take yearly trips combining golf and writing, and he supports most of my choices. At 81, he asks me all the time about my book, and sends me links about how to get published. I remind myself
that his high standards are not my own, and that I am still inside the story everyone thought would be published by now.
My daily journal documents this unexpected chapter and the moments of grace that bridge loss and life.
