How Writing Can Create A New Self

By Vicki Woodyard

In 2000 my husband Bob was diagnosed with multiple myeloma, cancer of the bone marrow. In the hospital, having been told that he would survive less than 3 years, he asked me to do one thing. One thing that led to my new life. These were his words spoken from his bed, “I want you to find your passion before I die.” Silence filled the room. A small dingy hospital room packed with grief and hopelessness.

Cut to the present moment, which is all there is. I am at the iMac writing this article because Greg Goode suggested it. Greg knows my story, knows that I am passionate about what I do. I suspect that my late husband knows it as well. I feel inspiration behind my writing that surpasses my own. For I run on inspiration; I almost never flag in my enthusiasm for what I do. I took Bob's words to heart. I began a website to support him in 2001. My old self had died when it heard those words, “You have less than three years.”

Yes, I actually heard them on a tape player that my husband brought to his first office visit after his discharge from the hospital. I had been too emotional to accompany him, so he taped the doctor visit. He put it in his sock drawer and I dared not listen for months. He didn't share the dreadful news with me. But one day I gathered courage to turn it on. There it was; I couldn't deny it. Less than 3 years. So I began to write daily.

I thought it was all about him but it was really about my future without him. He wanted me to dive into the rest of my life, so he gave me instructions on how to swim. For me, that is coming into the dining room/office and planting myself at the Mac. The words flow like water; I swim through them daily. Often I have wept as I typed. Love shines through with regularity. Even when I am at low ebb, I know the tide of words will rise again and my essays will float onto the internet to be read by many people.

So here I am, dealing with what is and not what could have been. Writing has created a new self, a writer by the name of Vicki Woodyard supported by a passion thrust on her at the worst time of her life. As the old story goes, who's to say what's bad or good? I have learned that my style of writing suits the internet well. They are short takes on spirituality, humanity, daily life and how to focus on the immediate gratification that has come to be my writing life. I follow the scent of my intuition and it romps through tall grasses and splashes into wordy ponds. I capture beauty in nets of paragraphs and wander through alleys of the darkest nights of the soul.

I have lived a life of love and fulfillment. I still do, only now it is something I can share with many people. My writing mantra is make 'em laugh and cry. It doesn't matter which one. Grab 'em by the short hairs of the neck and make 'em pay attention. Passion is everything. I have found that out first hand.

*Bob Woodyard died in 2004. Visit www.nondualitynow.com. Read a free excerpt of Vicki's book here.