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December 16, 2021 // 7:55 p.m. // Pieces of the puzzle
In 2002, I found (or maybe he found me) a journal of a fellow Utahn with an interesting, unique and tragic story to tell. He began his journal to detail his journey as a widower who lost his wife and daughter just weeks before writing here. His writing was compelling, his grief was unimaginable and his resilience shown through grieving their loss and remarrying again shortly after was like watching a fairytale. In one of the last entries I read from him (2005 was when I was starting to drift away to another journal) he mentioned he was looking to publish a book of his experience, beginning with his wife's death and concluding with his second marriage. Even long after leaving this site, his story and his words would occasionally pop into my head. This week, I found a folder from a long since dead computer containing my journal entries, various guestbook entries, comments I saved from my membership days and even a few journal entries from others, including several that are long gone. I found a few of his, remembered that he had been looking to publish his story, and set about trying to find it. But how would I do that? His journal is long gone. His entries didn't mention his name, only a first initial. There was a post where he mentioned his wife's name (rather than his alias) but that was all I had to go on. I knew his age when his wife died, but none of the dozen or so entries I had saved from more than fifteen years ago contained any additional details. As it turns out, I stumbled across his books on Amazon and discovered that he was quite the successful writer and speaker on his situation. And yes, the experiences he chronicled in the first year or so of his DIaryland journal are mentioned in his first book. I'm glad he's turned what was such a terrible situation into a new career that has benefited so many lives, and it's great to know what at least one of the people on my profile list is up to these days. I have just two on here that I know in real life, but as I mentioned in my entry a few weeks ago I still find myself wondering about several of these people, especially the ones who have no way to view their journals or reach out to them.