Woman of Strength?

I heard back from the New York Times, and they turned down my essay about that relationship of mine a few years back. Hiho. Can't say I'm surprised. Now the question is, do I rewrite or submit somewhere else? I really am not very good at this part. I have no idea where to try and resubmit it. Its almost more time consuming trying to find places to submit your writing than it is doing the actual writing itself. Went to Vashon on Thursday with a friend Derek Johnson who did some photographs of the place on Vashon. They turned out great and now I can post the house onto vacation rental sites. Its gonna be a lot of work, so we'll see how the summer goes. My book seems to be very well positioned in Australia. I am getting lots of emails from people who have read it. I was particularly moved by one that I got from a young woman who had read the book. She and her sister were orphaned by the bush fires. I have been so startled by some of what she has had to endure and the similarities to what I went through. The DNA testing, the not knowing when to have the funeral for her parents, the publicity. I can't tell you what it feels like to now be in a position to help someone else through something like that. I do still struggle with the identity piece, being the big expert on grief. I keep wondering if its holding me back in some way from moving on, whatever that means. Perhaps in helping someone else, I am moving on. I don't know. I just know that it is what I need to do. I hope even through cyberspace I can help a woman through the sudden loss of both her parents. I am headed to New York next week to receive a "Woman of Strength" award from Tuesday's Children, the 9/11 charity that I write about in the book. They helped me so much, and now to be honored, wow. At the end of April, I am headed to Waterloo, Ontario to be the keynote speaker (me! a keynote speaker! do miracles never cease?) for a bereavement conference. Crazy. I see that through all of this it is becoming more and more important to distill my message, in order to be really helpful. Something I didn't imagine would be so hard. Grief is so darned big! I hope I have the strength.