July 2nd, 2010

The bulk of this week has been spent working on the Elizabeth Custer book entitled The Soldier’s Widow: Elizabeth Custer’s Life With & Without George. After I write the Introduction I’ll turn the manuscript into my publisher for the first round of edits. I’ve enjoyed working on this project, but I remain apprehensive about taking it on. As they say in the South “everybody has a dog in this hunt.” There have been so many books, magazine articles, etc., written about the Custers and there are many historians out there who claim to know all there is to know about them. I anticipate being challenged on every word written. I’ve done my own extensive research and this book will contain Custer artifacts never seen before, but I still expect a backlash. I expect an attack by scholars (of which I am not) the likes of which hasn’t been seen since the Battle at the Little Bighorn. I could be wrong, but I’ve been doing this long enough to know that there is always someone out there who longs to tell you that you don’t know what you’re talking about. If I can get past that I believe I’ll have a great time with the launch of the material. I had a wonderful conversation with my ex-mother-in-law this past week. She was such a blessing to me when I was some 31 years younger. It was nice to catch up on what has happened since last we spoke. Life for my ex-husband seems to have turned out well. He’s been happily married for 25 years and has two beautiful and accomplished children. I had always wondered how he turned out. I’ve spent a good portion of my adulthood worrying about how I’m going to turn out, or whether I would “turn out” at all. The question is how to meet one’s definitive destiny, which for many individuals probably never happens. What if the greatest military strategist of all time was born a watchmaker in Switzerland, or what if the most brilliant medical mind in history was housed in a man selling shoes in Oklahoma? Those kind of misalignments are exactly what I’ve been worried about. I’d like to blame it all on a misalignment. There’s been too much heartache in this life to think I’d turn out any differently I guess. I’m not feeling sorry for myself?well, maybe I am a little. It’s hard to watch my brother fade into nothing when the real criminals roam about waiting to destroy more lives. And they will. I suppose if things had turned out differently I never would have taken up writing. Not being able to write would truly be a tragedy to me. I think it would have been Elizabeth Custer’s undoing as well. She wrote about everything that happened in her life, both good and bad. It was cathartic for her and, as it turns out, educational to the rest of the world. Perhaps that’s the best I can hope for myself.