When I first meet someone they quickly become aware that I am “not normal”. I see it in their eyes, and it no longer bothers me. In fact, I regard it as a compliment. Then when they find out I write books, they always ask what they are about. Ah, now that is the question. Do I tell them about that first novel—the one that got the gold literary award? Seems reasonable, after all, the others all follow that same venue—uncommon courage. I don’t see it that way. It is merely what naturally follows when one comes face to face with their mortality and has nowhere else to go. Did a butterfly ever have a choice?

One Death—One Birth: that is the story of that first book, The Courage of a Butterfly.
For me this life began in an ICU at the age of forty-five with a massive blood clot on the lung—the kind few survive. Lying there with that fist clutching the inside on my chest, I was fully aware that any moment could be my last, and with that awareness came an unseen presence, like smoke wafting through the room. Was it just the knowledge of my mortality? Who knows, but I knew that death was present—a tactile presence I could not deny.

With it came the realization that all the little lies I bullshitted myself about just the make my life work in the moment, were no longer applicable. One does not tell lies when in the presence of the Angel of Death. Yes, that was when I died.

You see, when the picture you hold as being who you are changes, your consciousness changes. And face it, what is death but a change in consciousness? This death was not the one I was expecting, nonetheless, who I was did indeed die in that ICU. You see, among those little lies was one big one—one with which I could no longer live.

Somewhere deep in my psyche I’d always know that should I ever allow it to emerge into the light of my consciousness it would surely obliterate who I was in life.

To die and be born on the same day—that Is the story this book tells. What is normal for a Butterfly, requires an uncommon courage from Mankind.