Sharon Butala (continued)

   This is Sharon Butala's second memoir.  The subtitle is "A Journey Through Love and Loss". I expected it would focus on her grief after the loss of her husband and her efforts in moving forward with her life- hence, the title "Where I Live Now".
  However, although it does deal with her widowhood, she also reflects on her whole life.  
   
  Sharon had married at 36 and moved to a large farm, where she connected to the land in a very personal, emotional way.  In 2000, she wrote a memoir, describing those years.  After 32 years of working the farm and wandering the fields, her husband died. What would she do?
  "Every time I looked out the windows to the north and nothing out there spoke to me, the light no longer caught a boulder and gleamed unexpectedly, shadows no longer moved and paused for me, a lump would come into my throat and my chest would ache.  In the days after all the work was done and the yard and fields were empty, slowly, I saw nature saying good-bye to me.  It knew as well as I did, and my neighbours and my friends, that I was leaving the countryside and my life as a country woman for good.  That I would not be back, that it- that life that had been mine- was over."

   Near the end of the book there is some reflection on death: "The people you have loved in life are still there in death; that is, through dreams and memories, and sudden flashes of understanding, you know they are still there with you."
  I have enjoyed Sharon's writing.  She is very expressive and reflective.  She started to write at age nine.  She believes that every author is trying to answer a 'great question'.  Her question is: "What is a human life worth?"  And in particular, "What is a woman's life worth?"