Life and death are one, even as the river and the sea are one.

When Patricia was young she loved books: reading, holding, living through the characters, creating all the stories in her mind’s eye. This was in small town New Hampshire. Born the first girl after three boys with a sister to come later, on her birthday, the desire to write began early. At twelve, she wrote, produced, and starred in a play about soldiers returning home, inspired by a trip to Concord, Massachusetts that her elderly neighbor, Mrs. Hoyt had provided, encouraging her to write with visits to Lousia May Alcott’s home and the homes of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Nathaniel and Sophia Hawthorne. Mrs. Hoyt planted in a young mind the understanding that words make a difference.

In 1964, the family moved to Washington, D.C., dropping them all in a culture shock into big city life. Locked doors and not speaking to strangers was all new. At 21, Patricia found her way back to New England, moving to central Maine. Her first job there, in 1973, was hand-sewing shoe vamps at Viner Bros. Shoe in Bangor. There she met and later married Charles Alonzo Bragg, Jr.-Lonny. After five children and living in the woods without running water, just lots of running feet, they moved back to civilization where she found work as an interpreter for the Deaf, working first with one young man with cognitive and physical challenges: the most obvious being blind and deaf. Her world took another turn and words/thoughts/intentions took on even greater meaning. This led to a full career and national certification as an interpreter. In between, there was a divorce and a marriage. She lives contentedly in central Maine with her husband Norm.

How Far Is Heaven? is a true story, her first published book. The events inside brought transformation for everyone involved, not just Patricia. May it also transform your world.

#BeKind