Andrea Bear: Writing My Story
HERLIFE Magazine Central Valley cover story writer Andrea Bear loves reporting on the unique accounts of women in the Central Valley, and that also includes her story. In 2018, after losing her mother to brain cancer, she found that writing became a form of healing as she learned to navigate her grief. Now, in 2022, publishing her debut fiction novel Grieving Daughters’ Club, she finds that the stories she shares in her book are common to the lives she reports in this magazine. ~Carrie Sass, Publisher and Editor-In-Chief.
If you had asked me ten years ago (even five) if I’d envisioned myself as a writer, I would have thought you were crazy. Writing wasn’t something I planned (commas and I have a love-hate relationship), but life has a funny way of steering one down a path, and in my case, my faith and personal hardship became my navigators. When my mother, Debbie Kapina, passed away in 2018 from a glioblastoma brain cancer, I was never prepared for the grief that would follow. My nature is to do and to serve, and grief is a reminder that no matter how one tries to escape, one can only run so far until it catches up. Grief can be crippling and I found myself trying to find purpose.
The first few months after my mom passed, I tried to return to normal and quickly discovered that my idea of “normal” was gone because she no longer was in that world. As a high school teacher and a mother, I had to figure out what my “new normal” would look like. I had been journaling my grief, concerned I would bother others with my sorrow. But that summer I promised I would try to find some kind of purpose. As fate would have it, I attended a Christian women’s conference and in doing so saw an old friend, Courtney Vallejo, who was a speaker and writer for Christian blogs. Something came over me and I believe it was the Holy Spirit. I felt a call to inquire into her world of writing.
Courtney gave me some leads and it took me six months to muster up the courage to write a few sample pieces before I could submit anything. But almost instantaneously after my first article was published on an online site, I got a call from a local Christian radio station who wanted to interview me on my article. It was confirmation that I was on the right path. I then joined a writer’s guild and started writing more articles. Writing gave me a new purpose that allowed me to connect with others I had never met, yet share similar scenarios of life experiences.
As I continued to write articles, I wanted to do bigger projects but I didn’t feel qualified to write self-help books or write a memoir and share overly personal experiences; I was still deeply mourning the loss of my mom. Around this same time, I belonged to a Bible study group. They were an eclectic bunch who drank wine and read the Bible on Friday nights. As I sat there with these women, they offered comfort and support, especially my friend, Sonny, who had lost her mother only a year prior to mine, and I realized her grief and mine were different yet equally difficult. The other women in the group also shared stories of loss and hardship, but possessed a deep joy that provided support. It was in this group my big project came to light, and I realized this was the story God wanted me to write. I had no idea what I was doing but I just wrote.
After the first few chapters, I realized this was my healing, and I realized these women’s journeys were equally important to tell. I finally opened up to my group about what I was doing and they were overjoyed and supportive. This past September, I was fortunate to have Elk Lake Publishing, Inc. publish Grieving Daughter’s Club, a fictional account loosely based on the lives of women in my group. Since its publication, many women and men have shared how they can relate to the characters in my book. I don’t proclaim that these characters show all types of grief, but I do believe it’s meant to help someone.
Yet writing my story and that of the women in my group hasn’t been the end, only the beginning. This past spring another prompting came over me and I felt called to write beyond my own narrative. This is when I began writing for HERLIFE Magazine Central Valley. Similarly, I found that the women and men I’ve interviewed all have beautiful stories of inspiration, struggle and hope, parallel even to characters in my book. In a way, you could say I’ve been writing “her life” before I even realized it. Making this connection has led me to see that we all have a story to tell to help someone along the way. We don’t all have to write a book or blog online, but sharing our human experiences with each other can be a support for those who often feel like they’re alone.
Andrea Bear believes that learning life lessons is easier to digest when presented in the form of a story. Feeling the call to write about her grief journey after losing her mother to brain cancer in 2018, she created the Grieving Daughters’ Club to share the experiences some face after loss, tucking a little bit of herself and her lessons into each character. She is already working on the second book of a three-part series. In addition, she is a journalist for HERLIFE Magazine and contributes articles to online sites such as catholicmom.com. She is also a high school history teacher in Stockton, California. When she’s not writing or teaching, she is shuffling one of her three daughters to volleyball practice or relaxing at a local Lodi vineyard with her husband. To read more about her work, visit andreabearauthor.com.
