Be honest. What runs through your mind when you first take your seat on an airplane? Do you hope the stranger sitting next to you will be a brilliant conversationalist and the two of you will enjoy a lively conversation for the duration of your upcoming flight? Or do you avert your eyes, pull out a book, and pop some earbuds in, sending the signal that you’re not interested in small talk? I default to option #2 most often, although I do like to at least say ‘hello’ before I bury my nose in my latest read. But magic can unfold when we open ourselves up to conversation. Three years ago, in September 2018, I found myself on a flight next to a woman I didn’t know. My daughters were elsewhere on the plane. It was a spur-of-the-moment trip and our seats weren’t together. I likely exchanged a quick greeting with the woman, but nothing more. I was mapping out the logistics of the launch of my second novel. She was busy on her phone. Eventually I noticed she was typing paragraph after paragraph on her tiny device. This intrigued me. I think I may have even asked if she was pulling together a blog post, although I don’t remember exactly how that initial conversation started. I do remember mentioning I was a new author, something I wouldn’t normally tell a stranger. There can be rare moments in life when we click with someone we only just met. We clicked. She said her name was Tara. Tara talked about her passion around the retreats she ran in California involving horses. It sounded fascinating. She mentioned her grown son, and how proud she was of his accomplishments. I could relate. We were traveling to my daughter’s interview at a graduate school, and I was a proud momma as well. I think Tara was traveling home after visiting her son. Again, I’ve lost the threads of our conversation, but our chat would be the start of a budding friendship that’s turned out to be a true blessing in my life. Our flight was running late. We both had tight connections with little chance of making our next flights. I gave her one of my shiny new business cards, and she gave me her contact information. Often this will be the end of this type of exchange, but for us, it was just the beginning. Luck was smiling down on us that day, and we made our connection. Tara did, too. We had a wonderful time on our girls’ trip. We dipped our toes in the ocean (always a treat since we live in land-locked North Dakota!), my daughter’s interview went well, and she’s now starting her third year in the program she interviewed for on the day after that fateful flight. After we got home, I checked out Tara’s website, curious. It surprised and saddened me to learn she was in the midst of a fight for her very life. She was battling cancer (something she never mentioned during our initial visit) and trying to save her Wind Horse Sanctuary. Tara is very active on social media, and I’ve slowly gotten to know more about this woman I randomly met on an airplane. She’s articulate, funny, supportive, and incredibly brave. We stay in touch. She’s generously taught me valuable tidbits about the various social media platforms. She watched a video of the very first podcast interview I ever gave. In the episode, I talked about my path to becoming a published author. She reached out to me after watching it, intrigued, and we continued to communicate back and forth. Her health struggles escalated, and I had grave concerns for Tara. To make matters worse, she shared that her mother was battling cancer as well. We live very different lives, Tara and I. She moved to beautiful Kauai, is a fiercely independent woman, and lives in a yurt surrounded by pets and horses. We marvel at the differences in our surroundings, particularly in the winter, when her weather is mild and ours is ridiculously frigid. When COVID struck the world, she put out an offer to say a special prayer for anyone in need. She was traveling to a sacred location along the ocean and wanted to offer hope and encouragement. It was April 2020, and my father was in the hospital, suffering from this scary new virus and fighting for his life. I reached out to Tara, told her what was happening, and she offered up a special prayer for Dad (Dad recovered!) I felt compelled to send Tara a copy of my first book, Whispering Pines. I hoped she’d find the story fun and uplifting, something to make her smile, to entertain her on hard days. Her cancer treatments are tough and ongoing. She’d mentioned a desire to write her own memoir, and I encouraged her. If ever a story needed to be told, it was Tara’s. She has a knack for finding the gifts hidden within her struggles. She shares those struggles with the world, not for sympathy, but as an example of how to overcome life’s challenges. Tara is like a candle, bringing light to a world that has far too many shadows. We both went on living our lives, and Tara began pulling her memoir together. Since I had a few novels out by that time, she’d reach out occasionally with questions about the more technical aspects of writing a book. I knew she’d enrolled in an online course, much as I had when I was first starting out, but I don’t believe we ever discussed the specifics. Then something crazy happened. When she reached the end of Whispering Pines, she read the Acknowledgement section. It’s a long section given it was my very first book, and I was bursting with excitement and gratitude when I finally reached that last step. We were both in for a big shock. Unbeknownst to either of us, we’d ended up taking the same online course for self-publishing. That was a fun coincidence. But the shocker came when she read the ‘thank you’ I’d included in the back of my book to Ramy Vance, my book coach. She was smack dab in the middle of her own coaching sessions with Ramy! What are the odds? We took that same program, a couple of years apart, and they have lots of coaches. I love when things like this happen. And I’m so proud of Tara. Despite many obstacles, she finished her amazing book and published it in August: Grace, Grit & Gratitude-A Cancer Thriver’s Journey from Hospice to Full Recovery with the Healing Power of Horses, author Tara Coyote. The book is selling like gangbusters, as it should. Tara has faced incredible odds, and she keeps coming out on top. A few weeks ago, we made another trip out to the western US, this time to visit our daughter at the school she interviewed with during the same trip when I met Tara. I thought it was fitting to get a picture of me showing off Tara’s wonderful new book while on the plane. I hope I played a small part in helping her bring her story to the world. Tara’s also been working her way through all of my books. She reached out to me recently to discuss my approach to a difficult death scene in my latest book “Celia’s Gifts.” My ongoing communications with Tara remind me that the fresh paths we choose to travel can lead to new friendships. We’re learning together as we navigate the complicated world of publishing. I’m so glad I didn’t stick my nose in a book three years ago and ignore the woman sitting next to me on that plane! I invite you to check out Tara’s story. I hope she’ll inspire you, too. You’ll find her all over social media, bringing attention to her many important causes. My favorite place to stay up to date with her is on Instagram at @taracoyote and @gracegritgratitudebook (be careful not to click on one of the unscrupulous people that are coming out of the woodwork pretending to be her now that she is seeing success with her book!) If you’d like to check out her book, here is a link you may find helpful: I encourage you to keep watching for opportunities to connect with positive, uplifting people like Tara in what is becoming an increasingly divisive world. There are countless wonderful people out there, and you never know where a simple hello might take you.
You just might find some magic of your own! Kim
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Kimberly Diede AuthorHello everyone and welcome to my blog! My name is Kimberly Diede and I'm a fiction author and family girl. When time permits, I am happiest with a great cup of coffee in one hand and a book in the other. I love to alternate between reading and writing. Winters here can be long, dark and cold. Summers are unpredictable, lovely and always too short. Every season of the year, as in every season of life, is a gift. Let's celebrate it together! Archives
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