Crying for Meaning: Inspired Writings & Finding Tranquility

by Stephen Lewis

The writer was an innocent and pretty naive 17-year-old. After his high school graduation on the night of May 23, 1973, he set out on his first real, big adventure. He was going to find an after graduation party which he wasn't sure where it was being held. He talked his mother into letting him use the family car for the first time by himself at night. After driving less than a hundred yards, the length of the football field where the graduation was held, his world came crashing down, literally. About two miles from the graduation, the family car was broadsided by a semi-trailer truck. The driver of the truck died. The writer was in a coma for three days and remembered nothing after that 100 yards until waking up in a hospital. Doesn't remember stopping for that malt, milk shake, pumped from his stomach. After waking up, he lived a double life. One of a now older, maturing 17-year-old, but not of choose, living a regular life. The other life one of hell with torments and pains, including wild thoughts close to suicidal which 'no one' knew of or didn't care, for example, jumping off the back of a pickup truck or jumping off a tall building just to see how it would feel. He lived this way on and off, mostly on, for over 40 years. He hated life, and still does.The events and stories leading up to the day when he was rescued from that hell were many, but he knew he had to follow his feelings, the path he was meant to follow. This one evening he sat down on a swing mooding and he received a text on his smartphone which started the rescue. It was from 'My Star'. He actually felt someone cared for him, true or not, it didn't matter. The sensation was new to him and hit his very soul. It started the search to his finding of inner peace, another something he never experienced since his accident but something he searched for, wished for, since then. My Star inspired him to start writing and finding that peace he sought for so long. Much of his writing was influenced and about My Star. He found a LOVE for her which he wished and prayed for for his whole life.For all his years of this second life he had, his only companion was God. No, not that of a religious tone, but a spiritual and imaginary nature, depending upon the moment. He prayed many times for Him to take him. He never did, or we wouldn't have this book. God was someone he could talk to and, in God's way, talk back to him, though it may have only been in his mind. He had no one else to talk to deeply.In the book, the writings will convey his strength of LOVE for My Star. She makes him love life. And sadly, in his way, a romancing of My Star for only in words could he put his feelings. And he wasn't sure of her love. After his accident, an event, involving his father, occurred which caused him to keep his emotions to himself, within. He kept his emotions pretty well bottled up. Anger and expressing his feelings, especially of love, were issues for him, but no more. He has found his peace. My Star was his savior. His writings will express his thoughts and feelings about My Star, his past experiences and their effects on him, and life, in general. Though you may not believe in a God or supreme being, there is a spiritual world, so with that in thought, for those not believing, when referencing God, think of the nature of the spiritual world and the force it encompasses. The writer truly believes in the power of the mind by the focusing on God and the spiritual world. With LOVE to My Star.

130 pages, Paperback

Published February 28, 2020

About the author

Born and raised in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn, Stephen Lewis holds a doctorate in American Literature from New York University, and he is Professor of English Emeritus at Suffolk Community College, on Long Island, New York. He now lives with his wife and daughter on five acres in a restored farmhouse on Old Mission Peninsula in northern lower Michigan.

Throughout his career, he has been both a writer and a teacher of writing. As a teacher, he has worked with college level and adult learner students in a variety of settings from standard classrooms, to online, to one on one tutorials, to small group workshops. In all of these environments, he has had success encouraging student writers to improve their skills. In a number of instances, these successes have led directly to publication.

His writing career began with a college textbook publication in 1970, followed by four more texts over the next twenty years. During this period, he also published short stories, poetry, and articles. His first novel, The Monkey Rope was published in 1990 followed by And Baby Makes None (1991) two mysteries set in Brooklyn and published by Walker & Company. He turned his attention to a different time and place, New England in the seventeenth century, for Mysteries of Colonial Times, written for Berkley, and drawing upon his expertise as a scholar of New England Puritanism. The Dumb Shall Sing, the first of this series was published August, 1999, followed by The Blind in Darkness in May, 2000, and The Sea Hath Spoken January, 2001. His historical novel, Murder On Old Mission, put out in 2005 by Arbutus Press, was a finalist in the historical fiction category of ForeWord Magazine’s book of the year awards. His most recent novel, Stone Cold Dead, was submitted by Arbutus to the 2007 Edgars.

He continues working in various genres, having recently published "The Visitor" in Chariton Review,“ and had "Eagles Rising" accepted by Palo Alto Review.