Stories I Never Told You

“Stories I Never Told You” is a portmanteau of the author’s stories, anecdotes, travel dialogues, personal experiences, and inner reflections.

Portions of this work depict actual events, presented herein to the best of the author’s recollection. In certain instances, it has been necessary to supplement dialogues or actions to more fully convey the story being told; these are the author’s own invention. Certain individual names have been changed for reasons of personal privacy.

Portions of this work are fictional, either wholly made up by the author or inspired by a chance word or phrase; the characters within them are also completely fictional or, in some instances, inspired by real-life persons whom the author has known and loved.

“Stories I Never Told You” is a journey of the soul, healing itself through faith, reflection, and observations of the author’s world and travels. From Paris to Rome, from Florida to Michigan to California, the author’s careful, profound experience of both the natural and spiritual enables him to contemplate his meditations and in so doing, comment upon the devastation of grief and the author’s deeply personal loss.

The slow, inexorable march of life towards death cannot be altered or changed; all come to the end…at the end. But there is another journey, from death into life, towards which the reader is carried, and thus, within the depths of the author’s sorrow and mourning there shines a bright star of hope, of comfort and salvation in his faith.

“Stories I Never Told You” may be considered a literary devotional; although the chapters are intended to be read in sequence each may be viewed on its own.

It should be noted the author wrote this book in chronological order; each chapter is dated accordingly. For discussion purposes, a brief list of reading/review questions is included at the end of the book, followed by various notes, references, and the author’s own pithy commentary.

“Stories I Never Told You” is a challenging, rewarding, fulfilling book. Like a cup of spiritual tea, it will calm, restore, and refresh. It is a memoir of friendship and faith, a journey of healing…and hope.