writing – Ann Coker

I’m Ready; Now Wait

Things get rusty with time and moisture.

Hugging my knees, I sat on the front steps of our house built on twelve acres. Red cedar banisters framed the concrete and brick porch. Fresh mulch, wet by an early shower, darkened the newly turned soil. The flower bed between two maple trees was readied, and I awaited a gift of hostas from my friend’s garden. We would plant one more page in our dream home.

When something is ready, what usually follows is a time of waiting. For me, that’s the difficult part. As with my writing, when one piece or manuscript is ready, I want to move on. As with my memoir about caregiving, I’ve written and am satisfied it’s finished. But the work toward publication adds to the process. I’m sending submissions to literary agents, for once again I’d like to try and secure traditional publishing. Memoir is not easy for that route, unless the author is famous. Definitely not me. I think my memoir is unique in its honest approach of how I tended to caring for Bill during his dementia. How do I convince someone it’s worth publishing and it will attract an audience beyond my friends?

So I wait to hear back from agents if they want to pursue a publisher for my memoir. The agent first has to be convinced in order to convince a publisher. One drawback of waiting is that things get rusty, but they also need moisture. In my case, it’s how I use the waiting time. I could add sweat and tears, but that would not get me an answer. How vulnerable should I be in presenting my case for publication? I definitely don’t have the name, and my platform needs work, but I’m more filled with self-doubt over the craft of writing. Is it truly worthy of publication for a wider readership? Will it sell? That’s what an agent and a publisher are looking for. It amounts to their educated and reliable consideration. If it doesn’t meet approval, I will again go the route of self-publishing. This time I might even try it myself instead of my favorite hybrid publisher. I have to consider the $ cost.

While waiting upon a response from the right agent, I can work on my next projects: Bill’s book on holiness and articles already started for magazines. Waiting can be rewarding if I put my mind and effort into it. A good reward is what’s waiting in this business of publication.

P.S. If you are an interested buyer for An Honest Caregiver when published, please send me your email address. al2.coker@gmail.com Thanks.

It’s Out There

What’s out where? My Memoir’s book proposal has been emailed to an agent. Now to do research for other agents and publishers. Here is part of the Introduction to Memoir from an Honest Caregiver. Are you interested in knowing when it’s published?

Introduction

One weekday morning Bill walked into the kitchen wearing only his jockey shorts and T-shirt. This surprising scene happened two years after moving to Indianapolis and buying a house together with our daughter and her husband, Becky and Paul Gearhart. Bill held two pairs of socks in his hands and asked which ones he should wear―black or white. My immediate reaction was due to fear, for our houseguest might find my husband in his underwear. I told Bill it didn’t matter; he could decide which socks he wanted. This didn’t solve his dilemma, for he could not choose.

This episode illustrates how Alzheimer’s disease affected my husband and how I reacted on the spot. You’ll read about our journey and view the stages of dementia caregivers experience. To our family and friends, be warned. You will see Bill as different, radically changed, not how you knew him (or me).

I introduce you to my husband before dementia began to control our lives. Bill grew up in New Orleans, Louisiana, the third of four children by a Mississippi-born couple holding modest jobs. His father worked in the railroad yard and his mother held a filing job in the basement of Charity Hospital. In spite of the family’s meager income, all three sons graduated from college.

Bill stayed home to attend Tulane University, earning a BA degree with a major in philosophy and a minor in English. He graduated in 1957, also the year we got married in Mobile, Alabama, after I graduated from Murphy High School.

Four years prior, Bill, as a senior in high school, distinctly heard God’s call to preach. Upon graduation from Tulane, Bill’s Uncle Bud, a Methodist pastor, helped him secure an appointment as a supply pastor for a small church in North Biloxi, Mississippi.

I sum up Bill’s further educational history. He received a BD and ThM from Asbury Theological Seminary, Wilmore, Kentucky, in 1963 and 1965. Then at Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati, Ohio, he earned a PhD in 1973, with a major in Hebrew Linguistics. For two years Bill taught at Asbury Theological Seminary and moved to Asbury College (University) as professor of Bible and Greek until 1989 when he accepted a pastorate in Terre Haute, Indiana, at World Gospel Church (WGC).

With this background, you can compare Bill as professor and pastor with what he later became. After 19 years as pastor of WGC, Bill retired in 2008. In July of 2010 he spent 24 days in the hospital with Legionnaire’s disease. Dementia set in soon after.

While you view various stages Bill traveled through, you are also in my head as I learned about myself. This is my story––how I connected with and cared for my husband. If you are now a caregiver for a loved one or soon to see that as your role, our journeys may relate.

For me, his caregiver, the basic loss became Bill as he used to be, for my expectations from him no longer held reality. Add my independence and control, along with loss of connections with family and friends.

Every good skit, play, story, or book needs a beginning, middle, and ending. It began after Bill’s hospital stay with Legionnaire’s disease. Writing in my journals about the messy middle of five years, I did not know how or when this memoir would close. The process of the ending was brief. The end came on the seventh of March 2024 when Bill, after two weeks of in-home hospice care, breathed his last. A new chapter began with my grief journey, but I’ve know God’s peace.

Privileges

Spilled-out Beauty = Privileges

While listening to the song “How Great Thou Art” on Spotify, I remembered as a teenager singing in the choir during a Billy Graham Crusade in New Orleans. Later as an adult I had the privilege of being a youth counselor at a Graham crusade in Lexington, Kentucky. During that event I found out how a counselor connects with someone going forward during the invitation. This memory led me to mentally enumerate the many privileges I’ve had during my lifetime, too many to list here.

When Bill asked my hand in marriage, my first thought was one of regret. Strange, yes. But I had sensed the Lord leading me to a mission field someday. Being a pastor’s wife seemed to exclude that opportunity. But no. Bill and I have been on several short-term mission trips: first in Colombia, South America, then several countries in the Orient, India, Russia, and Africa. I even went with a group (without Bill) to Ireland. God has allowed me to participate in a wide range of travels, including Israel and Germany, something I’d not anticipated as a youth.

Giving up a scholarship to Birmingham Southern University in order to marry Bill, I thought a college degree was also not in my future. But while Bill taught at Asbury College, I enrolled and graduated 20 years after completing high school. Our four children agreed to my college attendance even when it consumed us for six years. What a privilege; for it led me to explore journalism in various fields of creativity, which included being on staff at Good News magazine, led by my professor.

I moved from being a professor’s wife and returned to my preference as pastor’s wife while working in pro-life agencies. Then retirement added the privilege of compiling Bill’s messages into published books. His influence continues. Many other privileges I could list, but I’ll conclude by mentioning (not by name) the friends we’ve met along our journey of ministry. As we say in the Emmaus community: God is good all the time. I thank God for allowing me to enjoy all these privileges.