A Mosaic Heart ~ Reshaping the Shards of a Shattered Life

by Terry Jones-Brady

How does one overcome the loss of two daughters to debilitating disease and then the sudden, unexpected suicide of the spouse who shared that journey?

Terry Jones-Brady did it by adding one small piece at a time; rebuilding her heart and spirit by combining lessons and experiences from many different people and places. She shares her poignant and inspiring story in her recently-released memoir: A Mosaic Heart – Reshaping the Shards of a Shattered Life.

We begin with the author’s courtship and marriage to Tim, and the foreshadowing conversation with his mother, where she tells the tale of a child lost.

She whisks us to the birth of their first child, Heather, who is diagnosed with Cystic Fibrosis. It’s 1970, a time when knowledge of the disease is limited and treatments are a guessing game. The disease consumes the lives of the small family, but they struggle through and decide to have a second child, Holly.

Holly is also diagnosed with Cystic Fibrosis.

We share Terry and Tim’s battle with the disease. We watch as Heather moves in and out of hospital care, and feel her agony until the illness weakens her and she dies at the age of twelve.

Holly seems healthier, though she, too, needs hospitalization at times. She lives a full life around the illness, becoming a ballerina, a student, an animal lover, a loving daughter, and a girlfriend. But, after a long and horrific battle she, too, succumbs at 22 years old.

Terry and her husband are shattered. They try to pull together, but it turns out to be too much for Tim. Almost five years later, he kills himself with a shotgun blast to the head.

Her entire family now gone, Terry somehow manages to carry on. She takes us on a journey of spiritual healing, exploring several different approaches to finding and nurturing a new sense of being. She pulls strength from each avenue and pieces it together. Her seemingly unrelated pieces ultimately made into a whole – a mosaic.

In time, she meets Kevin and falls madly in love. They marry and live together happily, until Kevin becomes desperately ill with an unknown ailment. He is misdiagnosed several times, treated for diseases and symptoms he doesn’t have, and his condition deteriorates.

The tension almost pulls them apart, and tests Terry’s rebuilt spirit. They find their way through, Kevin recovers, and they remain together, stronger than before.

Terry’s journey is heart wrenching. Her prose is melodic and highly personal. It takes someone with incredible inner strength and great courage to share a story as personal as this, and a talent as a writer to put it all together so well. Terry Jones-Brady has all three.

Purchase the book at Prince Books in Norfolk and the Shooting Star Gallery in Suffolk. For more information, visit http://www.terryjones-brady.com/