Dignity by Teresa S. Summers

"Judge, 27th Annual Writer's Digest Self-Published Book Awards Commentary*: The right for people with an incurable illness to die on their own terms has always been a hotly debated topic. Summers tackles this head on, with a main character that gets a life-sentence diagnosis and sees herself deteriorating rapidly.From the beginning, the author sets the scene in a way that we are fully aware of what's going to happen, and we would like nothing more to tell the character to hang on, not to abandon her family this way. But in the end, we understand her choices, even if we can't completely agree. The descriptions of how the protagonist's body begins to fail her are gut-wrenching, but it's essential to see in order to fully step into her shoes. Summers makes us ask ourselves: what would I do? Would I be strong enough to hang on? The ability to get into the reader's mind in a way that the story still turns in our mind long after it's over, is a skill that not many authors have, but Summers truly does.Perhaps many people won't agree with the ending. But in the end, it's the journey that Summers highlights here, not its conclusion. And I think every reader will probably be on board with that. * * * * Love takes many forms and asks different things from each of us. For Ashley and Tim O'Reilly, love had always been easy. To them it had come naturally, being comfortable and exciting, rewarding and secure, and through the years almost self-sustaining. For Ashley and her sister, Joan, it offered a more troubled silhouette. The tall, slim, and beautiful Ashley had proven a source of resentment to the shorter, squatter Joan from the earliest memories of either girl. They were children of divorce, each of them residing in opposing parent's camps, their conflicting personalities clashing with such disharmony that neither of them minded when their contact withered to brief birthday and Christmas greetings. But love, like life itself, will always change; whether over time or in one breathless, unexpected moment when it takes shapes never imagined and asks more than we are prepared to give. For Tim, Ashley, and Joan love and life transformed when Ashley became ill, and what was asked of each of them unbalanced them at the core of their humanity. Should one accept a death sentence or fight an unwinnable battle? Can an ill woman make decisions about her child? Her life? Her death? And what if her choices wreak turmoil to your own beliefs about life, love, religion, and death? In the end it is about preserving dignity: dignity for oneself; dignity for another; dignity even if life and love have changed its meaning for you. Dignity. * * * *