Memoirs of love, loss and life

Madeline Sharples is today's guest on Friday Five… Three... One. She's here to talk about her memoir, Leaving the Hall Light On: A Mother's Memoir of Living with her Son's Bipolar Disorder and Surviving His Suicide, was released by Lucky Press last year. 

FIVE FUN FACTS:

• Favorite beverage: Red zinfandel wine from Amador County, CA
• One habit you just can’t break: Eating peanut butter for breakfast
• Do you sing in the shower: No
• Do you dream in color: Yes
• TV shows on DVR? The Good Wife, Project Runway, Mad Men, 60 Minutes, Downton Abbey, Harry’s Law

THREE QUESTIONS

• What is your reoccurring dream? None recur, but they are all weird
• Shoes or purses? Both although I call myself the bag lady. My closet shelves are lined with them.
• Favorite ways to spend a rainy day? Going to the movies, working out, reading a book, writing a poem, napping

ONE SENTENCE

Using these four words, write a sentence: Madam. Whore. Baby. Canada.

Canada’s most renown Madam refuses to rehire her most highly paid and sought after whore after she had that damn baby because her once gorgeous and round breasts now hang down past her navel. 

YOUR TURN:


Leaving the Hall Light On is about living after loss. It's about finding peace and balance and various ways the author, Madeline Sharples, brought herself together after feeling so helpless and out of control during her son Paul's seven-year struggle with bipolar disorder and after his suicide in September 1999.
 Sharples explains: "I write about the steps I took in living with the loss of my son, including making use of diversions to help ease my grief.”


Leaving the Hall Light On is also about the milestones she met toward living a full life without him: packing and giving away his clothes, demolishing and redoing the scene of his death, cataloging and packing away all his records and books, copying all of his original music compositions onto CDs, digitizing all of the family photos, and gutting his room and turning it into her office and sanctuary with a bay window that looks out toward a lush garden and a bubbling water fountain.



My memoir has been said to be a tribute to life. One reader said: "After reading this honest memoir the reader will be impressed by the strength and life-affirming perspective of a mother who found her way to healing and peace."

Find me:

• http://madeline40.blogspot.com/
• @madeline40
• http://www.MadelineSharples.com
• http://www.redroom.com/member/madeline40
• http://www.naturallysavvy.com/savvy-over-60
• http://www.psychalive.org/index.php?s=madeline+sharples&image.x=13&image.y=5
• http://www.independentauthornetwork.com/madeline-sharples.html
• http://www.facebook.com/pages/Madeline-Sharples/145268628820134?ref=mf

Friday Five...Three...One... is a chance for guest bloggers to share a bit about themselves in a fun format of Five Facts, Three Questions and One Sentence. If you'd like to be a guest on Friday Five, Three, One drop me an email. Put 'Friday Five' in the subject line.