Breathless Haste

For about a decade, I felt a tug at my heart to write this book. Along the way, that idea was confirmed by friends and strangers in countless ways, as they encouraged me to document the stories they had heard or witnessed.

In 2020, I was visiting my ninety-seven-year-old mother. Because of her limited eyesight, she enjoyed having family read to her. On one particular day, she indicated interest in hearing some of the initial chapters I had written for this book. So I climbed into the bed with her and began to read aloud. She listened for a while and then asked if Jay was writing down his stories. When I told her he wasn’t, she strongly suggested he should.

Jay was taken aback by this idea. He was hesitant to begin writing again, as he had recently finished writing his doctoral dissertation. After much back-and-forth discussion over the course of a few weeks, Jay decided to join the effort.

For more than twenty years, Jay and I have written in personal journals, documenting our daily lives in the form of scribbled notes with all the questions, affirmations, concerns, struggles, joys, and heartaches we have experienced. Our history and the details written on those pages, along with the words written from our hearts as we reflected on our journey, have provided the content for this spiritual memoir.