Fireflies at Twilight: Letters from Pat Adams
Pat Adams, (Cate Adams, Carole Milks Turner, eds.) 2014
First Person Productions
163 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780984727650
Summary
Fireflies at Twilight: Letters from Pat Adams tells a story through family and friends' letters and emails.
Pat lived the last 15 years of her life with cancer and its repercussions. However, she was more annoyed and irritated than ever stopped or labeled by the disease. The entries instead highlight her daily life on a farm in southern Wisconsin, her appreciation of the natural world, and her courage and vivacity to live fully each day.
Pat’s writing include her quiet thoughts during winter hibernation in a drafty farmhouse, a raw intimate love letter to her husband before her first surgery; her frank yet kind advice to her daughters about employment and empowerment; a description of a winter outing to a nearby bison farm; summer observances in her travel journal of turtles and loons in Upper Peninsula, Michigan; and her lively commentary about her beloved Book Babes group.
Pat's story is not as much about the art of dying as it is about the art of living in the present, with messages of humor and hope in how the human spirit remains undaunted. One reader says: "Pat's letters are filled with thoughts of life—advice for her children, shared memories with friends and family—and always a reminder that her love for them will never change, that there is no force powerful enough to diminish the bonds they share." (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—January 20, 1951
• Rasied—Footville, Wisconsin, USA
• Death—March 14, 2011
• Where—New Glarus, Wisconsin
• Education—University of Wisconsn-Madison
Patsy Ann Adams was born in 1951 in Stoughton, Wisconsin, and grew up in Footville, Wisconsin, where she attended Orfordville's Parkview High School. She attended the University of Wisconsin–Madison and was employed at the New Glarus Elementary School near her rural home for 14 years.
Pat worked with special needs children in the New Glarus school system, starting as an aide to one young boy whom she accompanied all day. She went on to help with special needs children in mainstream and special education classrooms.
Pat loved her home on her husband’s family’s working dairy farm. A lover of all living things, she raised her own pigs, poultry, and vegetables, as well as flowers, dogs, cats, and kids—her own and others. "Half the kids in town knew her as 'Mama Pat,'" says her daughter Cate. She kept her four children—Sam, Cate, Norah, and Dan—involved in after-school activities from sports to music lessons, and attended every concert, recital and sports event.
Pat was an active community member and activist. She became a Girl Scout leader when her oldest daughter Cate joined in third grade and for fifteen years led the New Glarus area Girl Scouts, until her younger daughter Norah graduated from high school. Pat became involved in the teachers' union as her school’s representative for a number of years and served as the union’s president.
Pat always loved travel, including yearly summer vacations at a cabin in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, which typically included an assortment of visiting family, friends, and pets, and trips that took her farther afield, including Ecuador and California.
Through her letters and emails, Pat kept in touch with family and friends near and far throughout the hectic family years and the more peaceful "empty nest" stage that preceded her death in March 2011.
Book Reviews
Deftly compiled and co-edited by Cate Adams and Carole Milks Turner, Fireflies at Twilight: Letters from Pat Adams is a compelling and personal read. The candor is consistently impressive. The observations unusually insightful. Informative, intensely personal, thoughtful and thought-provoking...an extraordinary and enthusiastically recommended addition to personal reading lists, as well as community and academic library American Biography collections.
Midwest Book Review
[The authors] have turned Pat Adams from an unknown entity into someone who feels like a "dear, trusted friend." ... I didn't want this book to end, for with its ending came a sense of a visit with a close friend coming to a close before you are ready for it to do so. Fireflies at Twilight gives readers a certain peace and calm that is all to rare in today's hectic world. Pat Adams knew how to find beauty and peace and joy in the simple things of life—and how to share that with those she loved most.
Story Circle Book Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Have you ever faced a serious illness or helped a friend or family member through a serious illness? What did you learn from the experience?
2. Pat found a lot of comfort in gardening, nature, pets, her children, friendships and books. She mentioned books coming in the mail, trips to the library, etc. What are some things (including books) that give you comfort?
3. How do you think writing helped Pat? Do you journal on a regular basis?
4. Do you correspond via handwritten letters or postcards with anyone? What does a handwritten note tell about the author (rather than a typed one), such as mood or state of mind?
5. New York Times bestselling author Michael Perry said about Pat and the book: "First, just write it all down. You never know what a legacy it might become." Do you cherish and save handwritten items? Why/Why not?
6. Do you think that the schools should continue to teach writing? Why/Why not?
7. How does grief play a part in Pat’s life? For example, a month before Pat died, she was buying books online and had a friend check out a stack of books from her local library. On the other hand Pat takes care of "her business," and even writes her own obituary.
8. Pat writes about her grown children: "…I imagined a rotating visit plan with my chicks. They could each stay a month (or more) at a time. Not practical, but delightful to imagine. I do miss them when they are far away—always want them close. They help me in so many ways."
How does each child in his and her own way help and sustain their mother?
9. In a letter to a friend, Pat writes:
I love having girlfriends (like you) around me—so natural, comfortable. In my younger days, I dreamed of a community of women and children, with the men living on the next piece of land. Made good sense to me.
Pat was born in 1951, and therefore grew up during the '60’s and '70s. How does this impact her attitudes toward friendship, feminism, culture, music, and relationships?
10. There is much in the media these days about death and dying, prolonging life through medical interventions vs. receiving palliative care only. Pat and her family courageously made a commitment to keep her at home and bring hospice in to help her during her final months. How would you approach the dying process if you had a terminal illness?
(Questions issued by the editors, Cathy Gorey, and Marilyn Christensen.)