Beyond The Mandarin Sky
by
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I feel my family, all but my father, needed me at the graveside just as I needed them because I was someone familiar to hold on to. For those few hours we were united again.
I wonder, were they afraid to lower Mom into the ground still at odds with me?
It was a quiet service on a cold winter day. At least the sun was shining and there was no snow or ice. Shock must have set in because I can’t recall what anyone said during the service. Sissy and I sat holding on to each other. When it was over I leaned down and put single rose on the coffin. I know now why that’s done. It’s like a kiss, a way to touch your loved one before they are gone forever. Out of the corner of my eye I saw my father fleeing the cemetery. With Mother officially gone, that bully of a man had met his Judgment Day and lost. Mom told me once that she was his only real friend. Now he would have no one but himself for company. I know how hard that was for all of us and now he’d get a taste of it. Now he was going to learn to endure the kind of silence and suffering he had forced us to live in.
Years before her death Mother had made me promise to attend her funeral and have no harsh words with my father. I kept my word. We did not argue. We did not speak at all.
We left for home that afternoon with a hug from my sister and the promise of sisterhood again. Something curious happened that day driving out of the state of North Carolina. It was near sunset and I was driving as Robert slept so he missed what happened next.
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About the Book
A daughter struggles to come to terms with her mother’s death and is faced with the question "how far will you go to have someone you loved back in your life?"
Beyond the Mandarin Sky is the real life unforgettable story of Jessie, whose only dream as a child was to survive the tyrannical rule of her father, and whose only ally in the family was her mother. Having survived a miserable childhood, her father comes back years later to come between Jessie and her ailing mother. Uninvited to her mother’s deathbed, Jessie sets out to recreate a place for her in her mother’s past that will be untouchable by anyone in the present. The catalyst for this well narrated time travel journey back into the past, is a collection of WWII letters found after both parents death, that reveal her mother’s hidden past.
This gripping account lets the reader accompany the author so closely, that they will feel like an intruder. Journey back to 1944 and sit beside the bed of Annie, the ailing mother who is writing letters of cheer to her daughter three thousand miles away serving in the Army. Listen as she reveals both their lives to us and gives us insight into the life of her daughter who will lose her happiness on her wedding day.
A simple story of good triumphing over evil, achieved in an unconventional manner.
A poignant and moving account of a family torn about by an unloving father, a mother who obeyed him without question and a daughter that was left to search for her real place in the family when they were both gone.
About the Author
First time author Jessie B. Sostorecz has found success in her revealing personal story “Beyond the Mandarin Sky”. Forced to be silent about the tyranny in her family for fifty years, and warned never to tell, Sostorecz demonstrates tremendous courage in finally speaking out. Jessie was driven to reach into the past when her mother died not speaking to her. Who better to tell this story than the witness, the survivor…the searcher of the truth. “I have always believed in time traveling” the author states “and this documented journey proves it can be done”. The author lives a good life, happily married to Robert, a retired fire captain.