Elizabeth Moore - The Dreaming Road

Copyright 2018
by Elizabeth Moore

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this
work in any form whatsoever, without permission
in writing from the publisher, except for brief passages
used in connection with a review.

Some names and identifying details have been changed
to protect the privacy of individuals.

Cover design by Glen Edelstein (Hudson Valley Book Design)
Cover art by Amos Morgan and Nina Malyna || Thinkstock
Author photo by Leila Grannis of Grannis Photography
Interior design by Howie Severson/Fortuitous

Turning Stone Press
8301 Broadway St., Suite 219
San Antonio, TX 78209
turningstonepress.com

Library of Congress Control Number
is available upon request.

ISBN 978-1-61852-120-0

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Printed in the United States of America

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The day her daughter died

Time stood still

Shattering the glass mountain

For the quest of a greater will.

Picking up the pieces

From a world fallen apart

She suddenly heard a whisper

In the night of her broken heart.

Dancing Down the Dreaming Road
by Shawn Gallaway

Grain of Sand

I am a little grain of sand,

please hold me gently in your hand.

You may think that I am small, but I am vast,

and forever I will last and last.

Cassandra Moore

Dear Reader:

The Dreaming Road was conceived in the beginning as a diary. On the day of my daughter's funeral, a very kind soul suggested that I start a diary to record my thoughts and emotions after her sudden death. My friend implied that if I remained steadfast in my recording I could look back over the years and see how far I had progressed in my journey through what we, on this side of the veil, call grief and loss. And so, several days later I began to write, and I found that the writing was healing for me.

After about five years, I started to feel that something more needed to happen with my diary: perhaps I wasn't writing just for myself, but maybe for my family and friends as well. I turned it into a memoir of sorts, changing names and altering places and events to protect the anonymity of those involved. I planned to give my memoir to my daughter's friends and our family members as a Christmas gift when I was done, as Christmas was her favorite holiday.

After several months of writing in every spare moment, I started to hear a very insistent voice inside my head telling me in no uncertain terms that I was just writing half of the story. I tried to ignore the voice, thinking it was just a figment of my overwrought imagination. At that time, I had communicated with my daughter in dreams and through several mediums but never thought that I would be able to talk with her directly while I was awake. As a scholar, a researcher, and an academic, as well as a nurse, I struggled continually with whether or not the extraordinary experiences I'd had since my daughter's death were real or just a product of wishful thinking.

But the voice was extremely persistent, and every time I sat down to work on my memoir I became utterly distracted by this voice in my head. One of the things that survivors of suicide often ask is what happened, why did my loved one not reach out to me for help, why did he or she feel that the situation was so hopeless that the only way to escape the pain was death? I had been mulling over these questions in my head, and the voice was getting louder and even more insistent. So, late one night I just gave up my resistance to the voice. I grabbed a yellow legal pad, sharpened a couple of pencils, sat down at my desk, and asked the voice what it would like to tell me. The words began flooding in faster than I could write them down. I lost all track of time, and I really didn't know what I was writing until I read it over the next morning and was completely blown away. The writing I had produced was my daughter describing her encounter with an angel in a life review wherein she was guided to confront all the emotions that led to her suicide.

After that, I decided to suspend my disbelief and write what I heard without trying to censor it or fit it into my logical, analytical view of the world. This was my lived experience. I also realized that my book was no longer a memoir, because how could I objectively verify the events that happened to my daughter in this other realm that she called Summer Wind? I guess I will ultimately come to know the truth of her story when I cross the veil as well.

But my experience is what it is, and in my heart of hearts I do believe that my daughter has been communicating with me since the day she died; it's just taken me a while to cowgirl up and listen. One of the things that amazed me as I wrote her part of the story was how much she had retained her personality and her manner of speech, which could be pretty blunt at times. She always had that razor-sharp, sarcastic edge. But her spirit was much heavier when she was on earth, and in Summer Wind she seemed quite amused when she told me about her adventures. The predicaments that she managed to get herself into were told with such humor that I always looked forward to the times when I would pick up my pencil and let her tell me her stories. It was almost as if my daughter was off on an amazing, exotic adventure and writing letters home to tell me all about it.

For me it was quite a ride, and her letters from heaven helped offset some of the heaviness as I went through a period of prolonged and complicated grief, as do many suicide survivors, during which time I was continually racked with guilt. I saw all the red flags and warning signals in hindsight when there was nothing I could do to change the outcome.

It was at this point that I began to realize that there might be a larger purpose to our collaboration than just the writing of a novel based on a true story to share with family and friends. The novel was taking on a life of its own with two related but separate journeys. The first journey was my recovery from the sudden death of my precious daughter who meant the world to me, and the second was her experiences on the other side of the veil as she came to terms with what she'd done and its effect on everyone who loved her, as well as her growing understanding of her soul's intention in choosing such an abrupt and traumatic exit. So, I began, with the help of two wonderful editors, to weave the two stories together like braids in a lock of hair or plaits in a horse's mane so that the whole became more than the sum of its parts. The story is no longer a memoir, and it's not a fantasy either. This is the reason my book has ultimately become an inspirational novel and why I have decided to share my story with more than family and friends. For those of you searching for a lighthouse in the midst of a raging storm, it is my way of helping you navigate your own journey.

It is my hope that you, the reader, can get a glimpse of the enduring connections that exist between us and our loved ones who have passed on. The ties that bind us remain unbroken even in death, and when we understand the soul purpose of our journeys here on earth, we are set free.

And so, this is our story, mine and my daughter's. It has been a collaborative effort, between not just the two of us, but also a host of treasured friends both here and on the other side. We offer it to you with the most profound love and respect, hoping that in reading it you will understand that our connections are eternal and that love never dies.