I did a bad thing as a child. I caught a worm. I cut it up and then mashed it into peanut butter. I fed it to a neighborhood kid that I didn't like. I served it to him on a Ritz cracker and he ate it! Thinking I had laced it with black pepper he asked me, "What did you do?" I told him it wasn't pepper; it was a WORM! I was a regular kid growing up in the 1950's and the worm incident was not my typical behavior. Most of the time, I was a good child. I played with my baby doll, I climbed trees in the neighbor's yard, I picked buttercups and watched them shine under my chin, I collected pollywogs and I had a pet turtle. At summer camp, I earned the name, "goodie-goodie." The camp counselors saw me as a considerate child who did what I was told. It was true. Weren't all children obedient in the 1950's? I met Ron when I was a freshman in college. We dated all four years and got married right after I graduated. A good part of our lives involved sailing. Sailing was Ron's first love. In my late thirties I was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. When I was in my mid-forties, our marriage fell apart. MS was my first wake up call and our divorce was the second. I had lost the little girl of my childhood and I wanted her back. Many stories contained within these pages are about my transition from the "perfect" to the authentic. I've had an interesting life and enjoyed writing about it. I hope you enjoy these short stories and perhaps see something of yourself in some of them.
About the Author: Through the years, Lisa Epner has been: a cataloguer at Drew University in New Jersey, an ESL instructor in Guadalajara, Mexico and secretary to the department head of Pulmonary Medicine at Cornell Medical College in NYC. After her husband completed his medical training, Lisa stopped working and became a stay at home mom. Her friends in town said she was super-mom, doing everything to perfection. MS was a wake up call and ten years after that diagnosis she and her husband divorced. With their grown children out of the house, she faced living alone for the first time. It was scary and she felt overwhelmed. After a bit of time, she got on a path of self-discovery. Her passion to get to know herself better make up many of the stories held within these pages. She studied the Duke University Continuing Ed catalogue of writing courses for three years in a row before getting up nerve to take one. When that course ended, several of the women continued to meet and for a dozen years shared their prose. She lives in Chapel Hill, NC and has two grown children and two grandchildren. This is her first publication. Proceeds will be donated to the Greater Carolinas MS Chapter, Raleigh, NC.