Laughing With Bonnie

Dylan and Christine

Today I'm headed to Vegas to perform a wedding ceremony.  Stop laughing. (I know who you are.) 


The bride-to-be is my tattoo-covered goddaughter, Christine, who will be marrying her tattoo-covered boyfriend, Dylan.  Also present will be their two-month-old baby girl, Reilly (not yet tattooed).  Noticeably absent will be Christine's mother, Bonnie. 


Bonnie and I met 20 years ago when we both worked at the world headquarters of a Fortune 50 company. Her infectious laugh--especially at my immature jokes--was an attribute that stood out amidst the sea of oh-so-serious MBA-types in our sterile work environment. But it was her sense of compassion for the underdog, and the passion with which she strove to create fairness in an often-unfair world, that cemented our friendship. Bonnie weighed no more than 95 pounds, yet inside that tiny body was an enormous heart.

Within a year of meeting, she and I decided to go into business together. A single mom, Bonnie loaded her two kids, two cats, and two gerbils in the car and moved from New York to Los Angeles, where I had recently relocated. (By the time they arrived, they were down one gerbil.)

We spent long nights working on our business plan, usually over wine and lots of laughs. We encouraged each other to go on blind dates, and then laughed together when those dates were a complete flop. We cooked holiday meals together, took her kids to Chuck E. Cheese’s together, and spent a lot of time visualizing big plans for our respective futures. But mostly, we laughed.

Our business didn’t work out, but our friendship remained rock solid. In time, I relocated back east again for another corporate job, but we stayed in touch. One day, a mutual friend, Kelli, called to tell me that Bonnie was in the hospital. While at the public library with her kids, Bonnie had begun hemorrhaging profusely. As she lay on the floor of the library about to lose consciousness, she told her seven and nine-year-old to call Kelli and then lock themselves in the car until Kelli arrived to retrieve them.

At the hospital, doctors discovered that Bonnie had uterine cancer that was so advanced, her body was actually trying to abort her uterus; thus, the massive hemorrhage. Bag after bag of blood was transfused and an emergency hysterectomy was performed. Following the surgery, there was heated discussion about chemotherapy. Without it, some of her doctors argued, Bonnie would die. Others said that because of her weight, chemo would surely kill her. Ultimately, her lack of health insurance made the final decision: no chemo.

Once Bonnie’s health stabilized, she got serious about handling the legal paperwork for my guardianship of the kids if she were to die while they were still minors. Suddenly, as a single-woman with no dependents, I was contemplating the likelihood of instantly becoming a mother. But I should’ve given Bonnie more credit. When it came to having a goal about which she cared deeply, she was like a dog with a bone. And Bonnie’s goal was clear: to raise her kids herself.

After a decade in remission, her cancer returned with a vengeance, and shortly after Christine’s eighteenth birthday, Bonnie died in her sleep. Her two now-grown children, a handful of friends, and I took a boat out to sea and spread her ashes. Then we went to a restaurant and drank her favorite champagne and told stories about her and laughed until our sides hurt. Because Bonnie would’ve wanted that.

For her wedding tomorrow, Christine has asked me to incorporate stories of her mother into the ceremony. Thus, while Bonnie’s absence will be palpable, her presence will be undeniable. And I suspect this will be one of those weddings that involves a lot of laughter.

Bonita Louise Young
1955 - 2005

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Lauren's book, Zuzu's Petals: A True Story of Second Chances (In The Telling Press, 2011), is the #1 Top Rated memoir on Kindle. Hardcover copies are available at www.amazon.com, or signed copies can be ordered at www.laurenwardlarsen.com. Happy Reading!

Can You Imagine?

A question for all you parents out there: Do you remember when you first held your baby? Do you remember the overwhelming sense of love you felt for that tiny soul who’d just come into your life? Now can you even imagine resenting that baby?  Can you imagine wishing that you’d terminated the pregnancy months before when you had the chance?

It shames me to say that I know that feeling, the one about resentment.  I know what it feels like to be in such indescribable physical pain as a result of being pregnant that you wish you could go back in time and do the unthinkable. 

Today, most people who learn of my experience nearly dying in childbirth immediately want to reach for the Hallmark version of the story: how I must’ve missed my baby so much when she was sent to live with my brother’s family 400 miles away while I struggled to stay alive in the ICU. But that’s just not true.

My experience with childbirth – my first and last – was skewed by the onset of a very common pregnancy-related disorder called preeclampsia, which claims the lives of 76,000 moms and half a million babies every year.  Every year. 

For me, preeclampsia meant multiple organ failure, massive blood transfusions, and pain. Lots and lots of pain. It taught me that it’s possible to suffer so intensely that no amount of morphine can quell it, and no amount of maternal love can overcome it. By the time I was released from the hospital and my baby came home to live with my husband, Jeff, and me when she was two months old, my resentment had shifted to a different emotion – failure. I felt I had failed as a mother before I even began mothering.

Not everyone who deals with preeclampsia goes through the same emotions that I did. I’ll bet my friend Leticia never resented her baby.  How could she? Four days after he was born prematurely due to preeclampsia, he died. And what emotions must my friends John and Brenda have felt as they held their first grandchild shortly after preeclampsia took their daughter’s life? How does my friend Chris feel every time she takes one of her triplets to yet another doctor appointment to address the ongoing health issues tied to their preeclampsia-induced prematurity?

Preeclampsia is capable of causing such utter despair.  And the antidote to despair is hope.  For millions of new moms and babies, that hope comes in the form of blood. That’s precisely why the Preeclampsia Foundation and the Foundation for America’s Blood Centers are collaborating on a gala benefit in NYC this November 12^th – to create hope for every person who has ever felt the despair brought on by preeclampsia, to create hope for the millions of new moms and babies who will rely on lifesaving blood transfusions in the future. 

I am chairing this event and could sure use your help: auction items, sponsors, ticket sales, and attendance (email me! laurenwardlarsen@earthlink.net). Even if you can’t attend, you can show your support with an online donation: savinggrace.preeclampsia.org. Every bit adds up to more hope.

Can you imagine a world in which every new parent gets to hold their beloved baby and be swept away by an indescribable love? Not despair, just love. 

I can. 

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Lauren's book, Zuzu's Petals: A True Story of Second Chances (In The Telling Press, 2011), is the #1 Top Rated memoir on Kindle. Hardcover copies are available at www.amazon.com, or signed copies can be ordered at www.laurenwardlarsen.com. Happy Reading!

Loving the Unlovable

“You have managed to fall in love with the unlovable,” my friend Roxy said to me several months back.  Fortunately, she wasn’t referring to my husband, Jeff. 

She was referring to Jack, our bow-legged, halitosis-infested, benign-tumor-covered, foggy-eyed, mostly deaf, nasty-to-strangers (and sometimes us) rescue Dachshund who joined the family two and a half years ago. We already had two lovely standard poodles at the time, so why would we add another dog to the pack, let alone one with a built-in Napoleonic complex?

Wine. Too much wine.  All Jeff’s fault.

We were lounging in France after a leisurely midday meal in 2005 when Clare popped the question.  “Dad? Can we get a Dachshund?” Lying in a recliner across the room, I waited to hear my husband’s logical explanation as to why another dog would be impractical.  Instead, I heard, “Sure, honey. Why not?”

Enter Jack. 

Jack, Disgusting in So Many Ways

We’d figured that adopting a puppy would put our carpet over its canine urine limit, so we sought out an older, calmer dog that was already housebroken.  Instead, we got the Danny DeVito of Dachshunds with broken bladder control. 

Like a Ziploc bag of urine that’s not fully sealed, Jack scooches across the carpet drizzling a little pee here and a little pee there.  His voice—channeled by all of his humans—is harsh and raspy, like that of a pack-a-day smoker and quart-a-night whiskey drinker.  His mouse-eating average is impressive: one every eight months (and those are only the ones we’ve personally witnessed). Jack is disgusting in so many ways, not the least of which, his propensity to mount our 60-pound poodle whenever Duke is having one of his seizures.  I know, right?

And yet, we have fallen in love with the unlovable. 

This past Saturday, we noticed our little Jack was unusually lethargic.  He didn’t try to steal Duke’s food at breakfast, barely ate his own. When we held him, he felt hot, feverish in fact. We’d suspected that Jack wasn’t long for this world within weeks of adopting him as his medications - and our vet bills - increased, and we’d often joked that getting Jack was not so much a rescue program as it was an extended hospice.

But having lost one of our poodles last month to food poisoning (she'd raided the countertop and ingested a small amount of the sweetener xylitol), we were not prepared to lose another of our pack so soon after.  Instead of taking the “wait and see” approach, we loaded Jack in the car and drove to the emergency vet clinic where we ran up a $400 tab only to learn that Jack’s blood panel reflected a remarkably healthy little guy.

Now feeling the pinch on our wallets, we declined the suggested x-rays and drove Jack back home.  We cancelled our evening plans and instead opted for a DVD and onion dip, and Jack curled up on my daughter’s lap the whole night.  At bedtime, Jeff slept with Jack in the guest room, and at 1 a.m. when Jack woke him with his whining, Jeff returned to the emergency clinic for those x-rays we’d cheaped out on earlier.

While waiting in the examination room for the test results, Jeff noticed Jack moving about the floor in obvious discomfort. Jack then squatted, farted, and shot out what Jeff would later describe as “the offending plug” followed by a small amount of goo.  The vet tech returned to show Jeff a set of “normal” x-ray images before giving him another $200 tab. 

By the next morning, Jack’s fever was gone and he was back to being his usual obnoxious self.  The diagnosis?  A bellyache.  A 24-hour, six-hundred-dollar bellyache.

What can I say? We're head over heels in love this little unlovable guy. 

Jack Larsen

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Download a PDF of the first 4 chapters of Lauren's memoir, Zuzu's Petals: A True Story of Second Chances, free.  Click here and go to the link below the "Buy the Book" button.  Zuzu's Petals is also available on Kindle and Nook.  Hardcover copies are available at amazon.com, or signed copies can be ordered at www.laurenwardlarsen.com. Happy reading!

Speaking of Death

Years ago during a particularly hectic speaking schedule, a woman followed me out of the conference hall where I’d just given a keynote address at a regional Red Cross meeting.  I was rushing off to catch my next flight, but she seemed determined to have a word with me. She looked as if she’d been crying, even a bit angry, and I wondered if I’d somehow offended her with some of my, shall we say, offbeat humor.

“That story,” she said, gripping my arm. “The one about Jenny Eller…”

Jenny’s story was – and still is – one I tell often, not because it’s got such a happy ending, but precisely because it doesn’t. 

Jenny was seventeen when she was diagnosed with leukemia. Decisions regarding college scholarships – Princeton or Berkeley? – were superseded by chemo, blood transfusions, and appointments with the oncologist. As Jenny’s need for blood grew, so too did her desire to give back. She volunteered with her local blood center, helping them recruit more donors, speaking at community events, and making thank-you calls to those who’d given an hour of their time to donate blood.

Years after her diagnosis, in a hospital room filled with friends and family, Jenny lost her battle with leukemia. She never did get that college degree, but she did get four more years that she wouldn’t have otherwise gotten had it not been for all those blood components - red blood cells, platelets, and plasma - that supported her body throughout the cancer treatments.

On the night she died, Jenny’s father, Dean, promised to carry on her work with the blood center. Within days of burying his daughter, he spoke in her place at a luncheon to recruit blood donors. Four years and many blood center talks later, Dean left his career as a mortgage banker and took over as CEO of the blood center. And two years ago, the new Jenny Eller Donation Center opened its doors to the public. More than fifteen years after her passing, Jenny continues to have an impact on others, not the least of which, me.

While some wonderful, in fact inspiring, things have come about as a result of Jenny’s death, I’ll bet her parents would trade them all for more time with her here on earth. But death is a part of the “business” I'm in.  Not everyone gets the second chance that I – and many others – did.  Not everyone gets to shrug off their need for blood transfusions as "that time I was sick.” Not everyone gets a happily-ever-after.

I wondered if the woman who’d followed me into the hallway and was still gripping my arm was going to scold me for highlighting this harsh reality in what was billed as a “motivational” talk. I braced myself for whatever she had to say. 

“I was sitting in there listening to your story and the other stories you were sharing, and I found myself getting upset – even angry – at the unfairness of it all.”  Then she started crying. “I lost my daughter to leukemia a few months ago,” she continued.  “They tried everything, including regular transfusions, but in the end she still died.  I guess hearing all those blood recipient stories with happy endings really started to make me feel like I’d been ripped off. But then you shared Jenny’s story and I realized I’m not alone. So thank you for doing that.  I really needed to hear her story – and how her parents responded to that loss.”

Death is the one experience in life that we all have in common.  Ultimately, there’s no escaping it.  In my line of work (heading up the Foundation for America's Blood Centers), we certainly hope to help patients defer death – to give families more time together to build more memories and share more joy. So I'll continue to fight the good fight, but I'll never shy away from sharing the heartbreaks that are inevitable.  I owe it to all those who’ve lost a “Jenny.”

Jennifer Eller
1974 - 1995

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Download a PDF of the first 4 chapters of Lauren's memoir, Zuzu's Petals: A True Story of Second Chances, free.  Click here and go to the link below the "Buy the Book" button.  Zuzu's Petals is also available on Kindle and Nook.  Hardcover copies are available at amazon.com, or signed copies can be ordered at www.laurenwardlarsen.com. Happy reading!

Into Each Life Some Rain Must Fall

I was sharing a midday meal with Jeff and Clare at an outdoor café in Paris when, remarkably, the sun came out for the first time in our four days there.  As the waiter retracted the awning overhead, we all remarked how blue the sky was and how we might actually have a day and a half without rain to explore the city before our flight home that weekend.

And then the text came through. Call me on my land-line when you’re able. Need to talk. xxoo, Mom.

Mom hadn’t texted me the entire three weeks we’d been gone, so clearly there was only one reason for her communication: bad news. For a minute I thought about pretending I didn’t see the text. Or flat out ignoring it. But I knew I couldn’t.

I stepped away from the table and as the phone rang overseas, I wondered which of my three dogs was hurt. They were under the care of our trusted house- and dog-sitter, but our rescue-Dachshund, Jack, was already pretty old and decrepit when he’d joined our family two years ago, so I figured he was the reason for the text. Or maybe Duke. After all, he’d been having seizures for years, and despite our efforts to control them with various supplements, perhaps he’d had a particularly bad one. I was pretty sure it wasn’t Gigham, our beautiful 60-pound alpha poodle.  She was so strong and energetic we were sure she’d be the last dog standing. We'd often joked that Gigs believed she was supposed to be an “only child” and was simply awaiting the day when this would be the case.

Mom answered the phone, and without so much as a hello, I said, “Which dog is it?”

Gigs at Three Weeks Old

“It’s Gigham,” she said, sighing. “She died the day after you left for France, but I didn’t want to tell you any sooner because I knew how much you and Jeff needed this break. And I didn’t want to wait until you got home because I thought that would be an awful bit of news to hit you with after a long day of travel.”

I stood there, speechless, on a crowded street in Saint-Germain-des-Pres and tried to wrap my head around what Mom was saying, but the only thing that cycled through my brain was Gigham, dead, Gigham, dead.

Mom shared the details, seemingly trying to get them all out before she lost her ability to speak.  Something about the plant-based sweetener xylitol that Donna was baking with and Gigham raiding the kitchen countertop and xylitol being deadly for dogs and Donna finding Gigham’s stiff body the next morning. But my mind was still stuck on two words: Gigham and dead. 

It didn’t make sense. Gigs was one of the most alive dogs I’d ever met. She’d launch herself from our back deck without so much as one paw hitting any of the six steps down to the yard. When we hiked, she was the one to run fastest and farthest, exploring everything possible, while Duke would stay closer to Jeff and me. And Gigs was always the ringleader when it came to finding unauthorized snacks whenever we left home. She would do the dirty work—popping open the bread drawer or the trash can door—and then share the spoils with her less proactive canine siblings. Sometimes, when we ran back in the house for something we’d forgotten, Gigs would already be at work in the kitchen, trying to decide where the likeliest treats could be found.

I was quiet as Mom continued talking, but then my breath caught in my throat, an audible gasp of despair. And that’s when Mom broke down and we cried together on the phone.  I glanced back at the table and saw Clare crying, no idea what had happened, but clearly knowing that something was up otherwise why would her mother be leaning against the side of a patisserie, one hand on her forehead as tears streamed down her cheeks?

A Kiss From Gigs

Gigs was a bossy dog, and Jeff or I would often remind her that it’s no accident that she was considered a “bitch.” She’d growl whenever Jack or Duke invaded her personal space, yet wouldn’t think twice about pushing them out of the way if either happened to be lying in a spot she decided she wanted. Once, she sat right on Duke as he lay peacefully on our bed.  Eventually, Duke noticed the excess weight and conceded his spot to his pushy sister.

Despite her ruthlessness, Gigs was also the family protector. Even though she slept with Jeff and me, Clare would often see Gigs patrolling her bedroom at night, poking her head in, having a glance around and—once satisfied that all was well—leaving as quietly as she came. Whenever I got out of bed in the middle of the night to pee, she always followed me to the toilet then sat in front of me facing out, as if she was my bodyguard.  Though she’d made an art form of badgering Duke, Gigs was his greatest asset whenever a seizure struck. Once, she began barking nonstop and with an unusual tone, and when we went to investigate, we found her holding Duke up against the couch as he was having one of his seizures. When she saw that we’d arrived, she ceased barking and stepped away to let us take over. She was a brat, to be sure, but she was a brat with a big heart.

I said good-bye to Mom knowing there were more details to be discussed, but all I could do in that moment was stand on that busy sidewalk and share a three-way hug with Jeff and Clare. Our dogs are not “just dogs” to us. We cook homemade dog food for them. We take them on road trips. They sleep in the bed with us. They are family. We are a pack. And we'd just learned that one of our pack had died. 

Gigham. Dead.

We scrapped our plans to return to the Louvre that afternoon, and I cancelled my scheduled dinner with an old friend who’d relocated to Paris. We bought a chocolate mousse pastry in the patisserie and walked to the nearby Saint-Germain-des-Pres cathedral, where we lit the tallest candle possible for our precious Gigs. Then we set the pastry right next to it for her.

When we left the church, the blue skies were gone and the rain had begun falling again.

Gigham Spazmaginarum 12/14/2005 - 7/6/2011

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Download a PDF of the first 4 chapters of Lauren's memoir, Zuzu's Petals: A True Story of Second Chances, FREE here.  Click on the link below the green "Buy the Book" button.  Happy reading! 

Big Brother

My family has never been known for its subtlety and decorum.  We are a loud, fun-loving, and at times obnoxious group.  An Alec Baldwin look-alike, my brother Tim is tall and imposing, and perhaps one of the most opinionated of our clan. 

Jeff's First Worthington Family Reunion, 1996

Shortly after Jeff and I were engaged in 1996, I took him with me to the Worthington Family Reunion, held every three years at the Jersey Shore.  Close to one hundred descendents of my maternal great grandparents—four generations worth—take over cheap motels and rental homes in Avalon and Stone Harbor for a week of reminiscing, drinking, punning, gossiping, eating, laughing, and arguing over the most inane details of times gone by.  We come from all over the country—California, Texas, Massachusetts, Florida, Michigan—and join with a handful of New Jersey holdouts “down the shore.” 

On the third day of the reunion, my brother and I were bobbing up and down in the waves thirty yards off the shoreline. “Why is it I had to hear that you’re freakin' engaged from cousin Bonnie?” Tim said, his tone equal parts flippancy and irritation. 

I tried to come up with something witty to deflect my brother’s underlying anger, but my mind went blank.  Why hadn’t I told him? I wondered.  We were sharing a rental home for the week.  I’d had plenty of opportunity to make an announcement, or to tell him in private. I could’ve simply introduced Jeff as my fiancé when we’d arrived at the reunion two nights ago. Better yet, I could’ve called Tim after I'd gotten engaged two weeks earlier.

It’s not that I didn’t care about my brother being privy to the big news. On some level, perhaps I cared too much.  Whether consciously or unconsciously, agreeing to spend my life with Jeff meant I was replacing Tim as the most important man in my life, a title he had held, despite our outward displays of banter, since our father’s death when I was six, my brother nine.

Ever since my first real boyfriend came on the scene in tenth grade, Tim had had something to say about my love life.  When he walked in my bedroom one morning to discover that Paul had spent the night due to heavy snowstorms, he took the opportunity to threaten him.  Just remember—that’s my little sister!  Paul didn’t try to get to the next base for weeks. When Tim came home from college and found out I had recently started dating a guy he once played soccer against, he said, “Joe Beatty?  What a douche bag!” I broke up with Joe a week later. As a freshman in college I started dating Dave, five years my senior and working construction.  When I transferred schools at Dave’s request and moved in with him, Tim was furious, but Mom forbade him to intercede, so instead he bought me a cake stand for Christmas.

“A cake stand?” I asked him once I’d unwrapped his gift.  “Isn’t this something you give to married people?”

“That’s my point!” Tim shouted across the crumbled gift wrap, half glasses of orange juice, and wadded up red and green Hershey’s Kiss foils that covered the floor my parents’ living room.  “You’re acting like you’re goddamned married!”  I broke up with Dave before the winter break was through.

It’s not as if Tim hated every guy I ever dated.  Bob passed the test easily, Jim eventually.  But Jeff?  Jeff was different.  As far as I was concerned, I needed no approval from Tim when it came to Jeff.  He was not a guy I was "dating."  He was the man I was committing to spend my life with, big brother approval or no big brother approval.

“Sorry,” I said to Tim.  “I should’ve told you myself.”  No sarcasm.  No deflection with humor.  

My brother and I were quiet, both in our own minds, treading water over rolling waves in the salty Atlantic at dusk. Breaking the silence, Tim finally said, “I like him. Seems like a good guy.”

“He is,” I said. 

And with that the title was passed. 

Lauren and Her Big Bro on Tim's Wedding Day, 2010

Download a PDF of the first 4 chapters of Lauren's memoir, Zuzu's Petals: A True Story of Second Chances, FREE here.  Or you can download the entire e-book on Kindle here.  Happy reading!  

Smile On, Katy!

Katy Stowe had the world by the tail. She was smart, popular, and just five days away from her high school graduation. With her straight-A report cards and various student leadership positions, the energetic teen had applied to and been accepted at Auburn University, where she would attend in the fall. 

And then, life changed.

I met Katy in the summer of 2003 while I was giving a series of talks about volunteer blood donation to elementary and high school kids in Alabama. She had been assigned to introduce me to each audience during a two-day visit with the American Red Cross. The first thing I noticed about her – now in her mid-20s – was her smile. The obvious love of life that came through that broad Julia Roberts grin was infectious, and I found myself smiling back at her even before we were introduced.

Secondary to her smile were the apparent signs of lingering health issues: the slow movements, the slight drag of her right foot, the hairless, waxy-looking scars above her neckline and below the short sleeves of her shirt, – suggestive of the type of adversity most of us will never encounter. Curiosity got the best of me and, between talks, I asked Katy about the circumstances that led to her scarring. Without hesitation, she shared the details of her near-miss with death eight years earlier: the car wreck on a rural road, the flames bursting through the floorboards, the jammed door locks that trapped her in the car, and her miraculous escape – despite having several broken ribs, a broken elbow and a lacerated kidney – through a half-open window.

Downplaying any suggestion of heroics on her part, she told me about the years of physical therapy, the dozens of post-hospitalization surgeries that took place to release built up scar tissue, and the numerous blood transfusions she had received – all a result of having been severely burned over more than 60 percent of her body. 

“The toughest part,” she admitted, “was that it felt like all my friends from high school had moved on with their perfect lives while I was struggling just to feel normal again.”

With patience, determination, and time, Katy had overcome the physical and emotional challenges of her accident and reclaimed her life. Graduating with honors from Auburn, she then chose to pursue a career that involved saving lives through blood donation, much in the same way her own had been saved.

I looked up to see the next group of high-school aged students filing into the auditorium for my talk. I looked back at Katy and knew that the story of how she came to be a blood recipient at an age when life was supposed to be full of promise would be much more effective than my own story of a “middle-aged” woman who almost died giving birth. I asked her if she would allow me to introduce her and if she would then share her own story with this audience. She demurred, but consented.

After making brief introductory remarks, I sat down as Katy limped out in front of the students. I watched the faces in the crowd shift from studied boredom – that look that only a 16-year-old on a field trip can master – to curiosity, as they scrutinized every exposed scar on Katy’s arms and neck. And then there was that smile, which held their attention as Katy explained that life doesn’t always deliver on its promises, but that a small group of caring individuals -- in her case, blood donors -- are often capable of making up the difference.

Keep smiling, Katy!

Download a PDF of the first 4 chapters of Lauren's memoir, Zuzu's Petals: A True Story of Second Chances, FREE here.  Click on the link below the green "Buy the Book" button.  Happy reading!