Life goes on...with difficulty

What do you do if something catastrophic happens to your beloved? When I chose my next two books to read I didn't realize I'd be choosing the same theme in each.

When Danny Gregory's wife Patti fell and was hit by a train, becoming paralyzed from the waist, they somehow pulled it together and raised their infant son and continued to be a family. Danny turned to drawing as a way to dig himself out of a deep, depressing hole and has become the author of two books. The first is the sketchbook memoir of those days, EVERYDAY MATTERS. And many of us have followed his lead, read his book and his blog, joined his Yahoo site and begun drawing too, with or without the nudge of depression.

When Abigail Thomas' husband Rich chased after their dog and was hit by a car he suffered massive brain injury and has been hospitalized and in special care facilities ever since. Abby visits him regularly and has developed her life with her three dogs and her writing. She wasn't always a writer. Like Gregory, she turned to the arts in the aftermath of disaster.

Both books will stick with me for a long, long time. I can't imagine going forward if something happened to my husband, but I guess that's what you do. And if embracing the arts makes it possible, so be it.