My name is Heather McLeod, and I’m a story writer.

I wanted to write a novel, but 92,000 words is an intimidating goal. My husband, Brock, did the math and asked if I could write 252 words per day for a year. “Of course I can,” I said. “Easy peasy.”

So I made myself write at least 252 words every day, not allowing myself to go to bed until I’d met my quota. That’s how I finished my first mystery novel, One for the Raven.

Our story became a tragedy

Brock was living with stage four (terminal) kidney cancer at the time. Loving and taking care of a man who is dying, who is declining physically and mentally, is not an experience I expected to have at age 36.

There is no “happily ever after”

We were supposed to be farming. We’d just signed a lease for 65 more acres of land: we were poised to become Whole Foods’ largest supplier of certified organic vegetables on Vancouver Island. We had 24 employees, two tractors, and a year-old son.

But Brock started having afternoon naps and a mysterious gut pain. Within a year, we’d sold the farm and tractors and “retired” to a rented duplex downtown.

My husband had researched and saved to buy customized farming machines, but he never got to use them. The day I watched them being loaded onto a buyer’s trailer was when it hit me: our planned life was over.

Living with cancer

We lived in limbo for two more years, making the most of every day. We road-tripped across Canada with our 2.5-year-old son, from the Pacific Ocean to across Newfoundland and back. We had driftwood campfires on the beaches of Tofino, Brock’s favourite place, and spent time with family and friends.

There was much for me to write about. These stories began as brief diary entries on an anonymous blog: they are now personal essays on Medium.com.

A widow at 37

Brock died on September 20, 2017. Two months later, my son and I moved to my hometown in the Rocky mountains of British Columbia. I was a zombie on autopilot.

On the one-year anniversary of Brock’s death, something snapped and I didn’t stop moving for months: in a single day I would go to the gym, climb a mountain, then sweat through a kickboxing class. I’d put my son to bed and then run around the block. I couldn’t get enough adrenaline. A coach told me: “You’re stronger than you think you are.”

Starting a new story

That winter, I made friends with a man who is now my boyfriend. We’ll celebrate four years together in February. We have family camping adventures with our three kiddos.

In 2020-2021 I wrote my second mystery novel. It’s a better book than my first. I’ve studied hard: plot, suspense, pacing, tension.

I host a book-in-progress club on Facebook where I share draft chapters with my patrons and they critique them. We brainstorm how to kidnap characters. They find my typos.

Writing about trauma

I’m still writing through my grief. These stories are shared on Medium. Living in a town of 3,900 people, it’s hard to feel heard. On Medium, my stories have reached tens of thousands: people who are caregiving or grieving their own loved ones. People with their own stories to tell.

My most-read story, about the brain fog I experienced after Brock’s death, has been read by over 27,000 people.

The story I’d like parents to read is “Dads of Boys Age 6-13: Your Time Has Come.”

The stories continue

I will always have stories to tell. If you’d like to share this adventure with me, Heather McLeod, please subscribe to my newsletter:

Thank you for reading!

– Heather