Not Forgotten Publications




It all started with this book:


It was the summer of 2009. A friend from Kansas came to visit me in Pennsylvania. He brought along a manuscript that his mother, Margaret, had composed in 1966. The handwritten pages had sat on a shelf for nearly 45 years, until a few months before my friend’s visit, when his mother had begun the painstaking process of typing them.

The manuscript told the story of Carol Joy, Margaret and her husband Dale’s first child,and only daughter.

Carol’s life began when she was conceived in the spring of 1959—when, as Margaret writes, "signs of new life" were "appearing everywhere." The brightest and most beautiful of those signs was that "God had answered our prayers and was going to send a new little life into our lives. But with all the plans and dreams of new parents, we couldn't begin to imagine or comprehend at the time the impact that this life would have on ours."

The nature of that impact began to emerge just a few months after Carol’s birth on December 9, 1959, when her parents "were told that our dear little Carol Joy" had been "born with cystic fibrosis (CF)." "Ever since," Margaret wrote, "our lives have been filled with a constant search for answers."
Up until this time both of our lives had gone relatively smoothly. There had been no major tragedies, trials, or frustrations—and then suddenly we were faced with the possible loss of the one so dear to our hearts. Where could we find the answers? In our desperation we turned to God, as we had done since our childhood, but this time with perhaps a deeper fervor and sincerity than ever before. And in God, who never fails, we didn't necessarily find specific answers to the myriad questions we had asked, but we found what we needed most—the reassurance that our loving God does still care for us.
Six years later,
the first days after Christmas 1965 seemed to be a radiant afterglow of that beautiful season. Carol Joy’s new Christmas doll, Sally Ann, couldn't have had a more devoted mother. She dressed her upon awakening in the morning, brought her to the table at mealtime, and tenderly rocked her and tucked her into the doll buggy, which she placed alongside her bed at night. Being a mother was always uppermost in her thoughts. So often she would say, "When I grow up I'm going to be a Mommy and have ten thousand children." We would chuckle to ourselves at her seriousness, and yet in her own little way she must have sensed what a blessed privilege it is to be a mother.
Less than two months later, in early February 1966, Carol Joy died at the age of 6 years, 1 month, and 22 days.

"My purpose in writing this book," Margaret says in her prologue, was
to share with our children what I remember about Carol Joy's life.... Most of these thoughts were written shortly after her death as part of my grieving process. Perhaps they will help you to have some idea of how special she was, as all of our children are, to us.... Why did the Lord, who is good and gracious, who sent us this wonderful gift from heaven, take her out of our lives again so soon?... Passing through this crisis in our lives has been far from easy. Now that we have experienced it, we realize that perhaps we can't consider it a tragedy at all but a real blessing to us and to all those whom her precious little life touched. We realize it isn't nearly as important for us to know the answers to our questions "Why?" Some questions must remain unanswered. But it is so important that now we find an answer to the question, "What are we to do now?"
And now, what was I, Alice, to do?

Since 1988 I had been working in the publishing world, primarily as a production editor and copyeditor. Could I—would I—my friend asked, turn his mother’s manuscript into a book? For her? For his family? For him? I had never produced a book all by myself before. But I could not say no.

Margaret had typed her manuscript on a typewriter, so there was no electronic copy. My first task, therefore, over the following months, was to scan the pages into my computer as PDF files, which I then converted into Word files and proofread against the hard copy. I read the electronic pages a second time and did some light editing of the text. My friend sent me several dozen photos to include in the book. Some were printed, so I scanned them; others arrived on a CD.

I researched our publishing options. We decided to use the Blurb self-publishing platform. After my friend and his mother had approved my edits, I used Blurb’s BookSmart software to lay out the book’s .75- by 9.75-inch pages and cover.

In July 2010, Margaret’s manuscript about Carol Joy was finally ready to be printed. Margaret and her husband ordered ten copies for family and friends. I also own a copy. The beautiful but expensive book (expensive because it includes color photographs) is not available for purchase by the public. I wish it could be, because it is a treasure—a poignant example of the value of one person’s life, no matter how brief.

For me, the joy of making this mother’s dream come true was like no satisfaction I had ever experienced before. A seed had sprouted. But a couple of years would pass before that seed grew into a plant bearing similar fruit.

Beginning in 2012, grace has brought to me a series of books that have been an honor, privilege, and joy to midwife into the world. Click on the following links to be introduced to each of these "children":

Comments

Post a Comment