Yvonne Hammond is a student who participant
in a writing family history group I facilitated in the Northern Rivers in the
2000s…she was then in her 80s and said that writing the stories of her life and
her family had become one of the most
joyful acts of her life. Yvonne became a friend and over the years since
we have met and corresponded and talked about writing, life, love and the
universe…….In my 2007 book Writing Family
History Made Very Easy I have an
excerpt from Yvonne’s story of her mother titled ‘Cradle to the Grave’
(pp.12-13), as an example of a strong imaginative framework and good use of dialogue Yvonne uses in the re-creating of the conversations of her
childhood and youth all done with a
lightness, deftness and skill rarely found in most family history.
Yvonne was 83 when she wrote that
story. Now at age 91 Yvonne has written
a personal story of her experiences caring for her husband Don from the onset
of his dementia in 2002 until he passed away aged 91 in 2012. In that time Yvonne
also dealt with several major operations herself including a serious fall and
broken bones just after losing Don necessitating a long stint in hospital and
then rehabilitation. But in all that time Yvonne showed courage and humour as
well as real toughness in dealing with whatever came her way.
In her writing of The Challenging Journey
(her story of Don and her and a journey of love, compassion and much else) there
is humour, irony, poignancy and a wonderful sense of love and the frailty of
the human condition. And there is
compassion and caring.
You can read an interview of Yvonne Hammond
in the Ballina Shire Advocate as follows:
 |
| Article from Ballina Shire Advocate 5 Feb 2014 Yvonne Hammond talking about her book |
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