Total New Beginnings - Total Freedom, #2

In her early adulthood, Debbie made a choice. She had two men who loved her. She chose one. She lost the friendship of the other. Twenty years on, horrific tragedy strikes. Mother to three grown children, she has to find the strength to be there for them, while pushing her own grief aside.

Dealing with the loss of the man who has been by her side for two decades pushes her into depression. Every day seems harder to deal with than the last. The feeling of loss is further heightened by finding her husband's lifetime of journals. Hesitant at first to look inside them, she eventually does. Almost instantly, she regrets that decision. In the years of her husband's writing, she reads things that lead her to seriously question whether she ever really knew him at all, or if they had actually been strangers for two decades.
The combination of the loss of her husband, and the uncertainty about who he truly was, pushes her to retire into a dark room and have no desire to leave. She wants to shut out the world. She wants to not believe what she knows in her heart is real.

With her youngest daughter, Poppy, still living at home, Debbie is eventually pulled from the darkness by her daughter's pleas. Finally, the dark days start to fade, and Debbie begins to see the sun shining once more. She can find the strength to keep going. She can start to move into a period of recovery and growth. Finally, she can accept that it's okay to accept help and lean on others.

As she starts rediscovering her ability to embrace life again, results appear from her daughter's determination to help her mother. Someone from her past is brought back into her life. A friendship is re-established. It's time to let go of the past and begin a new future. It's time for total new beginnings.

Did you ever hear the words in your head … 'what if'? What if you chose one path earlier in life but later had the chance to walk down the path previously unchosen? Would you?