The Story Behind the Story with Nancy Cusack of Saint John, NB, Canada.

 

The Scribbler is happy to have Nancy join us again to introduce her new book.

We are more than pleased to have her return.

She has been a guest previously and if you missed it, please go HERE. 

Read on, my friends.

I am a Licensed Counselling Therapist in Saint John NB. I live in Rothesay. This is my second book that was born from being a daughter and a care giver to my father who had a wonderful life before struggling with dementia.

 

Title: When the Sun Went Down: My Dad, Me and Dementia.

 

Synopsis: It is a poignant deeply personal memoir exploring the bonds of family, the heartbreaking progression of cognitive decline and the unexpected challenges that arose as my dad grew frail and vulnerable. The book offers a candid look at how dementia transforms family structures, tests emotional resilience and redefines what it means to love and protect a parent.

 

The Story Behind the Story:  At its heart, the book was written for anyone sitting in the quiet, overwhelming space of caring for an aging parent. It offers validation for grief, anger and love that coexist when a parent becomes ill, reassuring readers that while dementia changes everything you can navigate the storm with honesty, grace and boundaries.  When a parent becomes vulnerable it can lead to family conflict and betrayal. I want any reader going through something similar to feel less alone.

 

Website: Please go HERE.


A question for you Nancy.

Scribbler: Who was your favourite author, or story, growing up?

Nancy: Growing up in Rural New Brunswick my favourite stories were real life stories that my grandmother would tell me about her life and growing up in the same area. One story that I included in my book “ When the Sun Went Down” was how she worked the farm while also caring for her baby boy (my dad). I've included an excerpt of this story below.

Pearle would take the baby everywhere on her hip as she worked. By midday the sun bore down without mercy. Sweat pooled in the hollow of her collarbone, trickled down her spine, soaked through the thin cotton of her housedress until the fabric clung to her skin like a second layer she couldn't shed. Her hair, pinned back in the morning with such care, had long since come loose, damp tendrils sticking to her temples and the nape of her neck.

When he was three years old, he fell off her lap as she was raking one of the fields with a horse and rake in tow. She stopped the horse in time, so Dad was not injured by the big rake. In those days a rake was a large piece of farm equipment that had a seat and was attached to a horse, not like the garden rakes used today. The rake was a monstrous rusty thing, enormous, and menacing. Its curved metal tines jutted out like the sharp claws of some ancient giant, each one stained with oxidation and worn from years of hard labour in the fields. When the horse plodded forward, pulling its burden across the uneven ground, the rake would bounce and clatter behind, rising and falling with each step. Those sharp edges would catch the newly mown hay, lifting and turning, the sweet scent of cut grass mingling with the metallic tang of old iron.

It was no easy task, managing all of this at once. The leather reins had worn grooves into Pearle's palms familiar channels where the straps settled, rubbing the same places raw, day after day, until the skin there had toughened into permanent ridges. Still, by the end of a long afternoon, even that hardened flesh would burn. She could feel the reins cutting in as she held them taut, her fingers cramping around the leather, her wrists aching from the constant tension of keeping the horse steady, keeping the line straight, keeping everything under control.

The horse's breathing was rhythmic, interrupted by the occasional snort or shake of its great head, the bridle jangling with each movement. The rake behind them created its own terrible music, a scraping, clattering symphony of metal against earth, tines catching and releasing, the whole apparatus groaning and creaking as it lurched over rocks and ruts. And beneath it all, or sometimes rising above it, was her boy's voice: babbling observations in his three-year-old language, humming tunelessly, occasionally calling out "Mama!" with delight at some bird or cloud or nothing at all.

My grandmother had to control the reins with steady hands, guiding the horse along straight rows while constantly glancing back to monitor the positioning of that intimidating rake. Her neck ached from the constant turning, the vigilant checking. One wrong move and the tines could catch on a rock or dig too deep into the earth, jerking the whole apparatus to a violent halt. She'd seen it happen before, the sudden stop that could throw a person forward, the rake bucking up like a living thing.

And all the while, she balanced a toddler on her lap, my dad, three years old, his small body warm and squirming against her as the rake's seat jostled beneath them. That warmth was both comfort and burden. In the heat of the day, his body added to her own furnace, his skin sticky against hers, his weight pressing down on her already-aching thighs. But it was also the warmth of life, of love, of the reason she kept going when every muscle screamed for rest. She would shift him slightly when he grew too heavy on one side, murmuring "Easy now, sweet boy," or "Mama's got you."

In later years, when my grandmother would tell this story, and she told it often, as if the retelling itself was a prayer of thanksgiving, she would reach the moment when her boy fell, and her entire demeanour would transform. Her voice would rise to a shriek, her eyes would widen with that same terror she must have felt decades before, and her rugged hand would fly to her chest, clutching at her heart as if to keep it from leaping out. "He fell right off my lap!" she would cry, reliving it all over again. "Landed right there between the horse and the rake!"

The image refuses to fade from my mind, so vivid, so real, as if I'd been there myself. That small child tumbling from his mother's grasp, hitting the ground in the narrow space between the plodding hooves of the horse and those terrible metal claws that continued their relentless bouncing, rising and falling, rising and falling, just inches from his tiny body. It was a miracle, really, no other word for it, that my dad wasn't trampled by the horse's heavy hooves, that those large metal claws didn't catch his clothing or his tender flesh, that the rake didn't roll forward over him as the horse continued its steady pace. Any one of those things could have happened in the split second it took for my grandmother to react.

My grandmother must have been an expert at controlling the reins and the horse, her reflexes honed by years of farm work, her connection to the animal so instinctive that she could halt it mid-stride. But even she would admit, with tears glistening in her eyes and her voice dropping to a reverent whisper, that maybe, just maybe, God was watching over them that day as well. Some things, after all, are beyond even the most skilled hands to control. Some mercies come from somewhere else entirely.

 

Buy the book or eBook HERE.

Also available at Indigo in Saint John and Fredericton, the Write Cup Café in Saint John, the Kings County Museum in Hampton, The Titusville store, (where my dad grew up).

 

Thank you for being our guest, Nancy. We wish you continued success with your stories. 

A HUGE Thank You to all our visitors and readers.

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