Hello everyone! I started this year inspired by my essay "What Happens After Death" from last year.  At first, I wanted to focus on aspects about death and how people react to these things, so I wrote "text messages to the dead" from a nurse to her brother who had passed away many years ago. I did a lot of research and spoke to nurses with end-of-life patients, but I realized that I could do more than just that and created a bigger purpose to my project. So then, I thoughtabout children and how they are extremely affected by situations that adults don't really talk to them about.  As someone who has a niece and two nephews, I put myself in their shoes after many difficult situations we went through, and wanted to write something that could help them and also help children who are going through any type of grieving process. Therefore, I first started by writing "Life and its Goodbyes" after several research of how I should approach a children's story about dark topics such as death.  From there, I want to continue to write about difficult situations such as the "Growing Apart to a New Start" which is about divorce and how children deal with that, as well as "The Art of a Fresh Start" which is about children moving away to another location they were used to. 

It has been wonderful exploring these areas in the minor in writing, and I can't wait to continue writing more about these in the future!