This week Virelle shares with us a book excerpt from the memoir she is generously offering as a Book Giveaway (see below), as well as thoughts on what drives her life forward.
Have you had your own shares of rough spots in life? How did you get through it all? Come share with Virelle. She'd enjoy hearing from you ♥
Virelle's Special Book Giveaway:
Virelle is generously offering 1 copy of her non-fiction book THE BEST LIFE AIN'T EASY, BUT IT'S WORTH IT to 1 randomly chosen commenter. The winner will be announced here on Friday, August 3rd. For ease, please leave your email address within the body of your comment. Thanks!
Unraveling the
Layers of Life:
Writer Shares Importance of Transparency
and Authenticity in Life's Journey
Despite
our best intentions for a happy and fulfilling life, life seldom turns out the
way we once imagined. In her new memoir, The Best Life Ain’t Easy, But It’s Worth It (Moody
Publishers), Virelle Kidder candidly reflects on a life filled with bumpy
disappointments, hard choices and a deep commitment to her faith and
family. Readers will connect with
her stories as a young girl losing her father, talking to God as she played in
the woods, grappled with a loving but controlling widow-mother, and hungered
for the truth about life.
For a sneak peek at Virelle's book:
THE BEST LIFE AIN'T EASY, BUT IT'S WORTH IT
by Virelle Kidder
Chapter One
“Stopped on the Way to the Fair”
When
I was six years old and my brother Roger was ten. my father piled the four of
us into our ’51 maroon and gray Dodge and headed to the Thousand Islands on the
St. Lawrence River. To this day, I remember being carsick in the back seat from
both parents smoking in the front. Roger patiently kept me entertained and
relatively quiet with funny word games and whispered jokes. No one wanted to make Daddy mad.
On
the way home, we stopped for lunch in a pretty small town named Mexico in
upstate New York, just off Route 11, a few miles from Lake Ontario. Driving
down Main Street, we passed an impressive brick school with huge white pillars
and a bubbling stream next to it. Lining the streets were lush maple trees shading
quaint Victorian homes, churches with spires, small stores, a little post
office nestled among them, a tiny A & P, an even tinier a barber shop, and
a shoemaker next door. My father fell in love on the spot. Right after lunch he
found a realtor and bought a six room, 150 year-old gray house on Lincoln
Avenue at the edge of town. He had no job there; we had neither relatives nor
friends. But no one protested, not even my mother. Moving was an annual event
in our family. I thought everybody did it.
The
day the big van unloaded our things, I met my best friend Barbie. Her sister
Jane rode around the corner on her bike and invited me home for lunch. Both
sisters had cute Buster Brown haircuts with bangs. Barb was shorter than me and
shy, but full of adventure. Soon we were inseparable.
At
home mother papered and painted every room and Daddy had the house painted red,
built a white fence around it himself in the hot sun, and planted hollyhocks,
purple iris and roses. He never worked again, but often sat alone admiring his
work in a lawn chair in our side yard.
That
summer he also joined AA. Dr. Thompson, an anesthetist from Syracuse became his
sponsor. The Thompsons often visited us, bringing along with their two enormous
black Newfoundlands, both champions, Sam and Mary. Dr. Thompson would let me “walk
them” in the yard, which was more like them walking me. I grew to love AA
picnics and the people we met there. My father and mother looked happy again.
We all relaxed a bit.
Sometimes
I sat and talked with my father in the yard, asking him to tell me funny
stories. Telling stories was his favorite thing. I brought Barbie and Jane to
meet him one day, hoping he’d entertain them, too, but he didn’t feel funny
that day.
One
day my father brought home a baby blue parakeet. We named him Herbie. Daddy
spent hours talking to that bird and training it on the dining room table. “Put
your finger out and let him sit on it,” he coaxed us. “He won’t hurt you.” And
he didn’t. Roger and I had
parakeets for years after that, way into our adult lives. His patience with
pets was limitless. Even our terrier Chummy had a repertoire of tricks. People
were another matter.
Even
at seven, I knew Daddy was mentally ill, besides being an alcoholic. I’m fairly
certain he loved us, but his temper was frightening and unpredictable. No one
dared upset him. We were his second try at family life. I learned years later
through legal papers in the mail, that an earlier wife and two sons remained in
his wake just as we would. I longed to know them and often wondered where they
were.
About
the time our little red house in Mexico was painted and pretty, my father left.
He had sat up all night smoking in his overstuffed chair in the living room
watching our bedroom doors. Mother told me years later she had lain awake all
night in fear. In the morning Roger and I went to school, and when we came
home, he was gone. I found Mother washing dishes. She never looked up when I
asked, “Where’s Daddy?”
“He
left.” Is she crying? I wondered.
“When
is he coming back?”
“He’s
not.” Why isn’t she crying?
“Where
did he go?” Maybe I can run after him and
bring him home!
“I
don’t know.”
The
conversation was clearly over. I never asked again, but I cried in my bed at
night begging God to tell me where he was. I couldn’t think of anyone outside
our family to ask. We had secrets. Talking about Daddy was soon forbidden.
There was no one left to ask but God, and I barely knew Him at all. I remember
thinking, Maybe a Bible would help.
Decades
later Mother confessed hearing rumors he’d tried to reopen an old office in
Detroit. Once she’d received a letter from him threatening to kidnap Roger and me. I remember leaving our house with the
shades down and staying in a hotel in another city while the police waited for
him in our living room. Dr and Mrs. Thompson came to visit us and brought us
toys. It broke my heart to learn Daddy had actually come for us and was taken
first to jail, and then to a mental hospital in Utica. It was the best thing for him, but painful
to hear. Finally on medication, he began to improve for the first time in his
life, even sending Roger and me two plays he had written once for their church
couples’ club. Eventually, he did well enough to work and live on his own, but
mother had drawn up legal papers earlier that prevented him from seeing us
again.
No one spoke about Daddy again. It was easier that
way for my mother, who suffered silently most of the time. The next fall she
went back to teaching school. We all tried to act normal. Roger played
basketball, did the lawn and took out the garbage, I rode my bike, played with
Barbie, and helped in small ways dusting and wiping dishes. Life was quiet,
predictable, and safe for the first time I could remember. Mother tried hard to
make life good for us. She sewed clothing, made birthday parties, gave us big
Christmases she couldn’t afford. Her light was always on when I went to sleep.
She’d work until late at night correcting papers. Roger and I both tried to be
good and, hopefully, make her happy. For me, it became a lifetime yoke.
Most
of my growing up was spent with Barbie, hanging upside down in trees, or
playing cowgirls wearing my favorite six shooters in the woods, picking
blackberries, or building forts and pretend campfires. We knew every trail in
the two acre woods behind my house clear through to the hilly backyards of
Church Street. It was our happy kingdom. Barb’s family eventually moved to a
farm outside of town. We saw each other less often, but remained best friends
for years. When she wasn’t around, I made a pest of myself with Roger and his
friends until he’d beg Mother to call me inside or do something with me.
Life
could get very boring around our house. Rainy days were especially lonely. I’d stay in my room and play paper
dolls or store, or sweep off the red congoleum rug in our stone basement,
arranging porch furniture and pretending it was my home, the one I’d like to
live in one day. I folded napkins into triangles and welcomed neighborhood kids
as guests for crackers and cherry Kool Aid.
My
imagination became a retreat into a more interesting world. It probably saved my life. As I grew, my
imagination almost took ovee. By the time I was ten, it was getting me in
trouble. I exaggerated nearly everything, only I called it story telling. I
liked it that way. Real life was dull and full of things we weren’t allowed to
talk about, like where babies came from, and what was the meaning of life, and
where my father was.
Then
in fifth grade something amazing happened, a district-wide short story contest.
My teacher, Mrs. Bullock, insisted I enter it. When she mentioned the first
prize was any book you wanted, I knew I wanted a Bible. Instantly, I had a
story in mind about a young boy my age who loved his horse, but the horse ran
away. He searched and searched for the horse. It became a chapter book complete
with drawings. Of course, the horse was found and the boy was jubilant. I had
no idea I was really writing about my father. I won first prize, and eventually
took home a big red Bible.
“Why
did you want that?” my mother couldn’t hide her disappointment. “Why not some
good book like Honeybunch or The Bobsey Twins?”
“I just wanted it, that’s all,” I said, tucking it
under my arm and disappearing into my bedroom. Sitting on the corner of my bed,
I opened it gently and caressed the new pages. The answers to life
are in here. It was a holy moment.
But
where to read? I’ll start at the
beginning! I read a few
paragraphs, but nothing made sense. Not in the middle, either, not even in the
familiar chapters called, “Matthew,” “Mark,” “Luke,” or “John.” I slammed it closed. I can’t believe it! There’s nothing here!
No answers at all! It’s a lie! God must be a hoax just like the Easter Bunny
and Santa! Waves of acute disappointment turned to tears. I felt completely
alone.
Two
years later, Mother woke me for school one bright April morning. In the same
voice she’d use to tell me breakfast was ready, she said, “Your father died
last night. He had a heart attack. His landlady called. You’re not to tell
anyone about this at school. Only Aunt Char knows.”
I
sat up straight. “Does Roger know?”
“Yes.”
I ran quickly to his room and found him still in his pajamas reading a book in
bed.
“Don’t you know Daddy died?” I asked,
stunned by the casualness of the news.
“Yes,
“ he barely looked up.
“Don’t
you care?”
“No.
Not really.” It was years before I would know of the verbal and physical abuse
Roger had endured. For now, I turned away to process my father’s death alone. I
learned grief cannot be buried as easily as the dead. Like snakes under the
porch, grief and unanswered questions can live underneath your life and
frighten you a long, long time.
I
never quite forgot my father or God, but I tried. Both I considered out of my
life, less relevant with time, subjects best not talked about. Mother was right. It was easier that
way. I moved on to enjoy high school academics, a mix of achievements, music,
and fun with my friends. Barbie had retreated into her own world by that time.
We saw little of one another in the years that followed, choosing colleges
hundreds of miles apart. I applied at only one school, the University at Albany
in the capital, and chose a double major in Spanish and English. At nineteen,
college friends invited me to spend an exciting summer studying in Spain where
I found life far more colorful than any of my early imaginings.
Strangely,
I still felt agonizingly lonely at times. Friends were, after all, only
friends. They only cared about you so much. My mother and brother were busy in
their lives. I wanted more. I began to want a man. Not just a man. I wanted a
Prince. Impossible. They didn’t really exist. I decided to pray for one.
Pray? Where did that idea come from? How did
anyone really believe in that? God simply didn’t answer. I doubted He was
even real. Still…
I began praying silently on my mile-long walk to
class. Lord, if You’re real, show me by
three o’clock. At 3:01 I’d check my watch. Nothing. I felt like a fool.
Surely, He could have found some way to let me know. I prayed the same prayer
again the next day, and the next, trying to give God a chance to prove Himself
to me. Day after day, 3:01 would
come, and nothing happened. I didn’t need a Salvation Army band, just some
small sign. I stretched the deadline to four o’clock. Nothing. Then, anytime
this week.
I
became preoccupied with God, haunted by His silence. I told no one. Only God
knew, if He was even real. Seeking Him became my obsession. Months passed.
Then, at 10 AM one day in late spring, Steve walked into Dr. Creegan’s
philosophy class and sat down right in front of me.
He
was late, too.
The
dark green leather jacket her wore that day still hangs in our closet. The
English boots are gone, as is his dark hair. But the Prince remains. I loved
him the moment I saw him. The greater miracle was that he loved me, too.
Life became a romance, days whirled into months and
the music lasted. It lasted through college, through our first years of
marriage, through a new baby, and grad school, through Steve’s first job at
Johns Hopkins as a new Ph.D., right up until that hot Sunday in Baltimore when
our new friends, Ginny and Keith, invited us to church and home for
dinner. Until the moment Keith
opened his Bible and asked if he could read a psalm, and I saw Steve stiffen in
his chair next to me, and felt my throat tighten with some choking, buried
anger. Until the moment after
Keith read aloud and I said, “May I ask you something?” That was the moment the
music began to die.
I
hardly noticed it go. I was consumed once again with knowing God. Tearing
through the boxes in our basement, I unearthed the mildewed Bible I’d won in
fifth grade. I read it all summer, barely noticing Steve, or the joy leaving
him. You could hardly hear the music any more.
I
took a new lover that fall. His name was Jesus. He was all I ever wanted, the
God I’d hungered for so long. How could loving Him not be right? I hung on His
words, talked of Him day and night, lived and breathed His Word, and gave
myself to Him with abandon.
I
barely looked at Steve except to notice his lack of interest in my new
faith. I seldom looked in the
mirror, for that matter, to see how plain I’d become. Steve didn’t understand
me now. He wanted the old me back. He wanted the music again. How could I tell
him I’d given it away?
God’s Love Drives My Life Every Day by Virelle
Kidder
Shortly
after returning from teaching at a writers’ conference, I was in a deep sleep
one night when I sensed God talking to me, nudging me awake in the middle of
the night.
“Virelle,”
He said, “I thought you’d like to know how you really got your name, because you
were wrong, you know.”
“My
name, Lord? But I know how I got my name. My mother told me, and she wouldn’t
lie. ” Hadn’t I just offered my standard explanation it to a group of friends
at the conference? I’d been spelling and explaining my strange name all my life
when my parents put their names together, Virginia and Russell. When I was
twelve, my mother added an “e” because everyone called me “virile,” something
that never failed to make people laugh, although I never thought it funny at
all.
“That
may be what your parents thought, Virelle, but actually I named you. I just
told them what I wanted.”
“You
named me, Lord?”
“Yes,
I named you because I love you. I’ve always loved you, since before you were
born, you’ve been mine.”
And
for the next twenty minutes or so, as tears rolled onto my pillow, God spoke
His Word with my name inserted to tell me how He loved me.
“I’ve
loved you with an everlasting love, Virelle. I formed you in your mother’s
womb, I know every hair on your head, planned every day in your life. I saw
your tears as a child and saved them in a bottle. I have betrothed you to me
forever. You are my bride, my beautiful one. There is no flaw in you. I loved
you so much, I gave me Son to redeem you.”
I
can’t recall all God said, but I’ll never forget what He meant.
Until
that night, nearly thirty years after receiving Christ as my Savior, I’d always
known God loved me as He loved all His children, and I was the least of them.
But never since have I felt so loved by God, so permanently loved and fully
redeemed, so chosen and cherished. He has always had my heart, but now He had every
molecule in my body, every breath, every moment.
Author
Bio:
Virelle Kidder is a full-time writer and conference speaker. She
has hosted her own daily radio talk show in New York's capital district.
Virelle has a deep passion for providing women with relevant, accessible,
spiritual materials. She served for many years as contributing writer for Today's
Christian Woman and is presently a mentor for the Jerry B. Jenkins
Christian Writer's Guild. Virelle is the author of five books in addition to
her current title and resides with her husband, Steve, in Florida.
To Connect With Virelle:
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