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Time Branches
What if you were in a coma and everyone expected you to die at any moment, but you find that you are free to move in time and space? What would you do with your new freedom? Cailyn Whittaker decides to rewrite her mother's life, then she finds that she needs to rewrite her sister's. Eventually she rewrites her own, having great fun all the way. She enlists the help of an Indian swami in exploring some of life's great questions and using the answers to help everyone around her. Join Cailyn as she explores the purpose of her life by reliving and correcting some of her previous mistakes. This time she finds a rewarding career, her true love and a way to attend Woodstock.
162 pages, Kindle Edition
First published April 19, 2013
2 people want to read
About the author
Ron Frazer
15 books2 followersRon Frazer's novels are written for women who have lived long enough to have a few regrets, He has studied religion and psychology for the last forty years, so his books always have an intimate, spiritual element that is always positive, often involving women taking control of their lives, even entire countries. Every book celebrates women as a positive force in their culture.
Ron has traveled widely in 29 countries, lived in four of them and in several US states. He doesn't consider himself an expert on women, but, having been married three times with three adult daughters, probably has learned more about their concerns than have most men.
He has been an engineer, a yoga teacher, a financial planner, a photographer, and a computer security researcher. Along the way, he accumulated four college degrees, but could never figure out what he wanted to be when he grew up.
Follow Ron on Twitter at https://twitter.com/RonFrazerAuthor, or read first chapters of each novel at www.ronfrazer.com.
Ron has traveled widely in 29 countries, lived in four of them and in several US states. He doesn't consider himself an expert on women, but, having been married three times with three adult daughters, probably has learned more about their concerns than have most men.
He has been an engineer, a yoga teacher, a financial planner, a photographer, and a computer security researcher. Along the way, he accumulated four college degrees, but could never figure out what he wanted to be when he grew up.
Follow Ron on Twitter at https://twitter.com/RonFrazerAuthor, or read first chapters of each novel at www.ronfrazer.com.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
March 10, 2016
It’s about September 2012 and fifty-five year old Caitlin fell down a flight of stairs and, when TIME BRANCHES opens, is in a deep coma, lying in a hospital bed. She is also dying of cancer. Her mother is sitting next to her, holding her hand and trying to decide whether to keep her on life-support or to disconnect it and let her go, either from the injuries sustained in the fall or from the cancer.
Caitlin, meanwhile, is floating above the bed, watching her mother and her own body, and thinking about how she has wasted her life. She regrets what she didn’t do, how she didn’t fulfill her mother’s hopes for her and how her younger sister has been alienated from them for thirty years. She discovers that she can feel her mother’s emotions and begins to understand her for the first time in years. She feels regret and love for her mother and tries to let her mother feel that love.
She remembers when her family became disconnected. Her father left when she was ten years old, her sister five. Up until that time, she and her sister were very close, but as Caitlin entered adolescence, the relationship changed and Caitlin feels very guilty for abandoning her sister at a time when she really needed support. She then discovers that she can go back in time and change what happened so the outcomes for all of them would be better.
Communicating through thoughts and feeling, she first returns to 1979 and tries to redo the damage, hoping that the outcome will be different. She succeeds in making the outcome different, but the ending is not satisfactory. So, she tries again.
Making contact with an Indian swami, she learns how to meditate in such a way that she is better able to understand what she can do to help her mother and sister, as well as herself, and how to do it. This time, the ending is more satisfying. She and her family get to do things they missed the first time, like going to Woodstock. She learns, when she is dying of cancer, how much easier it is to learn what is really important if she doesn’t focus on material items.
We don’t learn what happens to fifty-five year old Caitlin but we do share in her journey to her new past.
Interesting observations:
“I never knew love could be this way. Before I got sick, love was only something to make me feel good. Boys or men would make me feel wanted, or give me a tingle; it wasn’t about something flowing from me to another person. It was all about what was coming to me.”
“There is no success and no failure–not really. There is only progress....In America, we are trained to avoid failure. We are punished for failure.”
Her mother was a Democrat. When she became wealthier, she became a Republican.
“You must find a way to use the things of this world without feeling that you own them. It is the sense of owning that brings worry.”
Swami: “Their minds corrupted my words.”
If we could relive our lives, what would we do differently based on what we did and learned the first time around? TIME BRANCHES opens up readers minds to different ways of examining their own lives and what changes could be beneficial. You don’t have to be dying to follow the suggestions. It displays how meditation can be useful in making decisions. It is well-written and quite understandable.
Caitlin, meanwhile, is floating above the bed, watching her mother and her own body, and thinking about how she has wasted her life. She regrets what she didn’t do, how she didn’t fulfill her mother’s hopes for her and how her younger sister has been alienated from them for thirty years. She discovers that she can feel her mother’s emotions and begins to understand her for the first time in years. She feels regret and love for her mother and tries to let her mother feel that love.
She remembers when her family became disconnected. Her father left when she was ten years old, her sister five. Up until that time, she and her sister were very close, but as Caitlin entered adolescence, the relationship changed and Caitlin feels very guilty for abandoning her sister at a time when she really needed support. She then discovers that she can go back in time and change what happened so the outcomes for all of them would be better.
Communicating through thoughts and feeling, she first returns to 1979 and tries to redo the damage, hoping that the outcome will be different. She succeeds in making the outcome different, but the ending is not satisfactory. So, she tries again.
Making contact with an Indian swami, she learns how to meditate in such a way that she is better able to understand what she can do to help her mother and sister, as well as herself, and how to do it. This time, the ending is more satisfying. She and her family get to do things they missed the first time, like going to Woodstock. She learns, when she is dying of cancer, how much easier it is to learn what is really important if she doesn’t focus on material items.
We don’t learn what happens to fifty-five year old Caitlin but we do share in her journey to her new past.
Interesting observations:
“I never knew love could be this way. Before I got sick, love was only something to make me feel good. Boys or men would make me feel wanted, or give me a tingle; it wasn’t about something flowing from me to another person. It was all about what was coming to me.”
“There is no success and no failure–not really. There is only progress....In America, we are trained to avoid failure. We are punished for failure.”
Her mother was a Democrat. When she became wealthier, she became a Republican.
“You must find a way to use the things of this world without feeling that you own them. It is the sense of owning that brings worry.”
Swami: “Their minds corrupted my words.”
If we could relive our lives, what would we do differently based on what we did and learned the first time around? TIME BRANCHES opens up readers minds to different ways of examining their own lives and what changes could be beneficial. You don’t have to be dying to follow the suggestions. It displays how meditation can be useful in making decisions. It is well-written and quite understandable.
November 2, 2016
I was gifted this book in exchange for an honest review. I found it a journey of sorts. I thought it one thing but instead it quickly became something else. This is not a bad thing. In fact it makes the book very interesting.
A woman in particular situation (I don't like spoilers) discovers she has the ability to go to a certain time and change outcomes. Like a tree there are many branches and some of them are breakable and thus we discover some changes are not suitable. In fact they can make a situation worse. I think this is enough of a hint regarding the plot.
The question then arises. Do we have the right to change things or should we change? How we react is often the major impact on an event. The novel explores this idea and becomes a journey into enlightenment for the reader.
I enjoyed the browse through history and the significant events portrayed. However the book had an agenda to take us into a world where spiritual leaders and meditation guides us along a path. In a sense it becomes a teaching tool. I have no issue with this, but I felt pushed towards a direction rather than reading a book that unfolds and allows me to question and make up my own mind. It lost the sense of being a novel for me so despite it being well-written I made no real connection to any character. It lost me just a little.
On the whole though the book is an interesting read, and well presents a 'novel' concept.
A woman in particular situation (I don't like spoilers) discovers she has the ability to go to a certain time and change outcomes. Like a tree there are many branches and some of them are breakable and thus we discover some changes are not suitable. In fact they can make a situation worse. I think this is enough of a hint regarding the plot.
The question then arises. Do we have the right to change things or should we change? How we react is often the major impact on an event. The novel explores this idea and becomes a journey into enlightenment for the reader.
I enjoyed the browse through history and the significant events portrayed. However the book had an agenda to take us into a world where spiritual leaders and meditation guides us along a path. In a sense it becomes a teaching tool. I have no issue with this, but I felt pushed towards a direction rather than reading a book that unfolds and allows me to question and make up my own mind. It lost the sense of being a novel for me so despite it being well-written I made no real connection to any character. It lost me just a little.
On the whole though the book is an interesting read, and well presents a 'novel' concept.
April 25, 2013
I wrote this book because I've always been fascinated with the idea of going back in time and correcting old mistakes. That's not true; I think I was about forty when I had enough regrets that I began to wish I could correct a few of the worse ones.
So, in Time Branches, Cailyn does just that. If you, like me, have a few regrets, then I think you'll like the book.
Ron Frazer
So, in Time Branches, Cailyn does just that. If you, like me, have a few regrets, then I think you'll like the book.
Ron Frazer
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews