Jeanne has been a writer since the age of nine when she won first prize for her story The Lonely Christmas Tree. Other stories she wrote that have not been published: Growing Up and Not Liking It, When Did My Life Turn Stupid? Dreams of Death, and Love is an Overused Word. Her first published book, My Search for Air, was well-liked by many but never became a best seller, which she delighted in since that may force her to mingle with people she doesn’t know. She also has a master’s degree in Thanatology.
Despite all these quirks, she is relatively normal and enjoys reading, gardening, crosswords puzzles, and spending time with family and friends (especially with those who are slightly off-balance like her.)
More Books by
Jeanne K. Johnson
It is 1975 and fifteen-year-old Julie Ann Wilson is living the good life. Her future is bright. It has to be. She is a good girl, a smart girl, a fortunate girl. Nothing can stop her--except death.
So begins Julie's journey with death in the cemetery where she resides with The Discontents--those like her who cannot move on to their next place. She is persuaded to return to her life, learn her story, and hopes to be released. She awakens to her Forever Summer at the family's lake house. But the idealistic Forever Summer turns dark when a wealthy widower moves into the community. Is he the friendly. charismatic man he appears to be or someone more sinister? Julie is determined to find out, which leads to dark. unforeseen consequences.
Can Julie save herself and undo the past or is she doomed to remain in In-Between Land? The Nearly Departed explores the dark side of humanity and the resilience of the human spirit.
The Nearly Departed
Jeanne K. Johnson
Tales That Haunt Beyond The Grave
Book Excerpt or Article
I’ve witnessed hundreds of sunrises and have never tired of their beauty. How amazing that the sun can mount the courage to shine each day, even when confronted with the darkest, most dismal dawn. Some mornings, I fear it may give up―decide it’s bored, underappreciated, forgotten. But it rises, determined to be noticed and remembered because it understands its light will eventually go out on some faraway day.
What I don’t understand is why the sun gets billions of years to shine. An old, worn-out star―way beyond its prime. And we (expendable mortals) get…maybe a hundred, if we’re fortunate. If people have only so much time, why do they waste it? I watched them again today hoping to find an answer.
A man jogs by, checks his watch and runs faster. Another walks his dog and yanks at the leash, “C’mon, do your business.” A woman and a small boy scurry down the sidewalk, and suddenly, he stops, “Mommy, look at the pretty sun. It’s all gold and shimmery. Beyond that is heaven, right?” The mother considers this. “Yes, yes, but we don’t have time for that now. Sunrises don’t pay our bills.”
On they go. She’s right. Sunrises don’t pay bills, but man are they beautiful.
These people―so preoccupied with things to do and places to go that they fail to find beauty in their aliveness. The jogging man. Does he stop to appreciate his lungs that enable him to run? The man with the dog. Does he appreciate the dog he’s yanking? And the mother. I find her the most troubling of all. Missing the chance to observe that beautiful sunrise with her son.
If they could hear me, I’d scream, WAKE THE FUCK UP! Seems you’ll have forever, right? You don’t. Why even the sun knows that. How about taking an extra minute and appreciating things that really matter? Gaze at the stars. Hug your child a little longer. Call your grandmother. Wave to the paperboy. Do something besides watching the clock, or counting how much you’ve achieved or will achieve. A minute or two isn’t much in the grand scheme of things. Don’t kill the precious time you have.
You’re muttering, okay, okay, I’ll do it tomorrow. Tomorrow is a tedious word. Tomorrow this, tomorrow that―a word for taking the easy way out, an excuse not to live in the present. Put off what you should have done today. Then tomorrow becomes yesterday and still undone. Do you hear the ticking? Listen. Tick, tick, tick―the ticks coming closer together. You’re ten years old, then twenty, then thirty, and so on (if you’re lucky). The next thing you’re running, not walking. And in the blink of an eye, the sun is gone, and so are you.
I know. I’m dead.
Julie Ann Wilson
1960 – 1975
Our Bravest Angel
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