Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    One Moment: A Memoir of Loss, Stillbirth, Faith, and Hope
    One Moment: A Memoir of Loss, Stillbirth, Faith, and Hope
    One Moment: A Memoir of Loss, Stillbirth, Faith, and Hope
    Ebook131 pages1 hour

    One Moment: A Memoir of Loss, Stillbirth, Faith, and Hope

    By Joan W Higgs

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    "One Moment" chronicles the author’s experience with sudden loss in her personal life and inside her classroom. It is also her memoir of growing up in West Virginia, daughter to a working single mother for part of her life. Clearly, it is the loss of her granddaughter to stillbirth that dominates this memoir and helps inform the public about a little known epidemic.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherJoan W Higgs
    Release dateJul 31, 2013
    ISBN9781301200801
    One Moment: A Memoir of Loss, Stillbirth, Faith, and Hope
    Author

    Joan W Higgs

    Joan W. Higgs, a retired English and Drama teacher, earned her B.A. from Fairmont State College (University) in Fairmont, WV, and her Master’s Equivalency from various institutions including Cambridge University in Cambridge, England. She is the mother of two and the grandmother of three. She lives with her husband and their border collie Annie in a farming community near Seven Valleys, PA

    Related to One Moment

    Related ebooks

    Biography & Memoir For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    Related categories

    Reviews for One Moment

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      One Moment - Joan W Higgs

      One Moment

      A Memoir of

      Loss, Stillbirth, Faith, and Hope

      Joan W. Higgs

      One Moment is a painful and poignant memoir of love, loss, and hope. Joan Higgs, a grieving grandmother, eloquently and honestly confronts the pain and the many nuances of grieving a grandbaby.

      - Dr. Joanne Cacciatore

      Founder of the MISS Foundation, President of Board of Directors

      In the spring of 1963, Joan became the producer and director of the school musical, Bye Bye Birdie. For many of us, Birdie is the signature memory from high school, a moment of pure fun, when Joan enabled us to believe we could do anything.

      - Bill Johnston, aka Conrad Birdie

      Fairfax High School, Class of 1963

      I first met Joan in my junior year of high school. My classmates who were lucky enough to be placed in her classes raved about her fresh approach to teaching English. Little did I know then, I would look back and realize in that brief moment of knowing Joan, she would in fact become the most influential teacher of my educational years.

      - Bob Wills, Architect, Spokane, WA

      Fairfax High School Class of 1964

      I was lucky to have Joan as my mentor. I still find her to be an inspiration. Her passion for her students and family carried through to her research to help families deal with stillbirth and loss.

      - Mary Kay Settle Folk

      Alexandria, Virginia

      Fascinating and inspiring. As an educator Joan Higgs was the consummate colleague, mentor, and friend. She had a great impact on the lives of our most complex adolescents, seventh graders. Joan established herself in my eyes as a beacon of hope for student success and a friend for life.

      - Khalid N. Mumin, Ed.D.

      Superintendent of Schools, Caroline County Public Schools, MD

      Joan Higgs points out the responsibility of a society to take notice of stillbirths and to deal more proactively in reporting and addressing the causes of this sad reality. As a parish pastor with over thirty years' experience in dealing with deaths, there is nothing more difficult than a baby that has been born still. A book such as this is helpful in reminding us that stillbirths happen. May we live in the hope she describes.

      - Pastor Dan Yeiser, St. Matthew Lutheran Church

      One Moment. That's all it takes to change your life forever. Joan has been a champion of support for families that have been through a stillborn loss. I am forever grateful my angel has a birth certificate to recognize who she was. Joan is an advocate for families and speaks from her own experience.

      - Kelly Fultz, Mother of a stillborn baby

      Copyright © Joan W. Higgs 2013

      All Rights Reserved

      Some names and identifying details have been

      changed to protect the privacy of individuals.

      Cover Art: Jane Wiley

      Cover Design: Demi Stevens

      Smashwords Edition

      FOR

      Ron, my rock

      Derek and Lora

      It is my honor to be your mother

      C, C, and N

      Joys of my heart

      K

      Love and respect

      Georgia

      You loved me first

      "For, you see, each day I love you more,

      Today more than yesterday and less than tomorrow."

      ~Rosemonde Gerard, L'eternelle chanson

      ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

      Judie Lightfoot

      Judy Parker

      Carolyn Botts Birch

      Dr. Joanne Cacciatore

      Jane Wiley

      Stephen Ministers of Eastminster Presbyterian Church

      and

      Pastor Greg Seckman

      for introducing his congregation to The Thin Place

      A cut finger is numb before it bleeds, it bleeds before it hurts, it hurts until it begins to heal, it forms a scab and itches until finally, the scab is gone and a small scar is left where once there was a wound.

      Grief is the deepest wound you have ever had. Like a cut finger, it goes through stages and leaves a scar.

      ~Author Unknown

      TABLE OF CONTENTS

      FOREWORD

      GEORGIE'S GIRL

      INDEPENDENCE DAY

      PERFECT FIT

      NEW BEGINNING

      SEVENTH GRADE MANIA

      THE GREATEST JOY

      SILENCE

      VENUS vs. MARS

      SMALL WORLD

      SAYING GOODBYE

      SALVAGING MY SOUL

      MY THIN PLACE

      AFTERWORD

      BIBLIOGRAPHY

      FOREWORD

      Moments. Our lives consist of moments. Some are mundane. A few are life changing. This book is about the moments that shock us into becoming who we are supposed to become, the moments that ultimately define us.

      The only titles I have are Mrs., Mom, and Nana. They are who I am, an ordinary American woman who has experienced some extraordinary tests in my life. One Moment reflects on some of them with an emphasis on sudden loss and those losses which occurred out of the circle of life.

      Sudden loss of any kind is the most difficult to absorb. Whether it is a granddad that, mowing his lawn one day, unexpectedly drops to the ground and leaves behind a grieving family, a teenager killed in an automobile accident, a student athlete who is hit by a car, or perhaps a child born with a horrible disease. It could even be a baby, a full-term baby, who never takes a breath.

      These shocking moments force us to surrender to transformation. Experiencing loss, and overcoming and recovering from loss often accomplish that.

      This book is a memoir of growing up in a small town in West Virginia, daughter to a single mom for part of my life, and eventually becoming a teacher, wife, mother, and grandmother. It is also a story of hope, a light at the end of the tunnel that keeps us going when our journeys become unbearable.

      The moments that define us are almost never predictable or expected. We go through life thinking we are immune to its inevitable tragedies and its heartbreaking surprises. We watch the news and think to ourselves, Well, that will never happen to me. We are not privileged. We are not immune. It is imperative that we prepare ourselves and our children for these moments because they will surely happen.

      One Moment is the story of an ordinary woman who faced extraordinary circumstances in my personal life as well as in my classroom and managed, through faith and love, to survive.

      GEORGIE'S GIRL

      I remember playing with dolls in an old shed on our property, talking to them, dressing them, and hoping that one day those dolls would turn into real life babies of my own. I also dreamed that my family would be whole, that there would be a dad who would stay, a dad who would love us enough to be with us forever.

      This story begins with my mother Georgia Ellen Jarrett who was born in the little mining town of Kingmont, West Virginia, on October 18, 1913. She was the sixth child and third daughter in her family. Her mother, Margaret Ellen Shumaker Jarrett (Maggie), was a stay at home mom, and her dad, William Jarrett (Bill), worked a variety of jobs in the mine. He eventually became a supervisor and retired at the age of seventy-five.

      For some strange reason, people who lived in this part of the country always managed to translate nearly every name into a nickname. Georgia became Georgie. I don't remember many people ever calling my mom Georgia. It was always Georgie, and I was Georgie's Girl.

      My mother was a rebel from the beginning. She often told me stories of how she did the opposite of what her mother wanted her to do, thereby inviting the wrath and inevitable punishment from Maggie.

      She was never able to explain to me why she continued to be a rebel. She just did. Rebelling was in her nature and this characteristic continued throughout her life.

      When she was a little girl, Bill and Maggie purchased several acres of land outside of Kingmont, built a two-story brick house and continued raising their younger children. This is the house and the land I remember. Slopping the hogs, carrying water from the spring, milking cows, picking fruit in the orchard, and churning butter are all things I learned to do as a child.

      Mother played basketball in high school which required her to stay after school for practice, then walk to the train station, about a mile from the school and often after dark and always through an unpleasant neighborhood filled with drunks and prostitutes. She was fearless, my mom.

      After graduation she didn't know what she wanted to do with the rest of her life. While visiting at the nearby home of one of her mother's friends, an idea crystalized. Mrs. Altop said, Georgie, you have always wanted to help people. Have you ever thought of becoming a nurse?

      That fall the money was scraped together to send Georgie Jarrett to nursing school at the old Cook Hospital in Fairmont, about six miles from her home in Kingmont, and there her adult life began. The Cook Nursing program trained daughters of coal miners, farmers, and families with limited incomes, those who otherwise couldn't afford college for their daughters. By

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1