Odyssey of Ashes: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and Letting Go by Cheryl Krauter


Publisher:  She Writes Press, (July 20, 2021)
Category: Memoir, Grief, Loss, Healing
Tour dates: August-September, 2021
ISBN: 978-1647421328
Available in Print and ebook, 168 pages

Description Odyssey of Ashes by Cheryl Krauter

Odyssey of Ashes: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and Letting Go begins with the sudden death of Cheryl Krauter’s spouse. Five months later, in a stroke of irony and magic, her husband wins a long-desired guided fly-fishing trip in a raffle―and Cheryl decides to go in his place, fulfilling a promise to scatter his ashes by a trout stream.

Part I of this memoir is an account of the first year after Cheryl’s husband’s death, where she becomes an explorer in the infinite stream of grief and loss, a time traveler between the darkness of sorrow and the light of daily life. Part II concludes with stories of the poignant and humorous adventures she had during the ensuing year. Tying it all together and woven throughout is Cheryl’s account of the creation of an altar assembled during the three-day ritual of Los Días de los Muertos.

Poetic and mythological, Odyssey of Ashes is a raw story of loss and the deep transformation that traveling through darkness and returning to light can bring.

Advance Praise Odyssey of Ashes by Cheryl Krauter

“Cheryl Krauter’s latest memoir, Odyssey of Ashes, is both a moving tribute to her late husband John and the celebration of an emergent woman who finds herself “being carried on great winds across the sky” in a cradle of intermittent sorrow and enlightenment.
Written in an enjoyable flowing format with chapters divided between two main sections, Krauter’s book will break your heart while channeling habits of self pity toward doing a greater good.. you’ll find good examples of ways to carry on..  Krauter shares personal, interesting anecdotes.
I highly recommend this book for those who’ve lost a spouse and want to understand how one woman is working through it.”- Shawn LaTorre, Story Circle Book Reviews

“In this engrossing memoir, Krauter shares her journey through the deep waters of grief. Her graceful writing reminds us that the cycle of love and loss is as natural as the river current, and it is only through fully embracing the force of the waters that dry land can eventually be found.”
–Allison J. Applebaum, PhD, director of the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center Caregivers Clinic and editor of Cancer Caregivers

“What a moving book about loss and mourning. Cheryl finds solace in, among other things, trout fishing, rituals, Buddhist wisdom―and, luckily for us, writing about her experiences.”-A.J. Jacobs, editor-at-large of Esquire magazine and author of Thanks a Thousand: A Gratitude Journey

“With profound insight, Cheryl explores the spiritual nature of life and death, the sacred connection between love and loss, life and death. A work of depth and infinite caring, this book is ultimately a gift of love, hope, and survival.”-Cindy Rasicot, author of Finding Venerable Mother: A Daughter’s Spiritual Quest to Thailand

Interview With Cheryl Krauter

Please tell us something about ‘Odyssey of Ashes’ that is not in the summary.  (About the book, character you particularly enjoyed writing etc.)

The character of my oldest childhood friend, Bill, aka Billy, shows up as one of the more interesting characters in the book. And, without question, he is an incredibly interesting character in real life! Bill and his spouse, Shash, were hiking with me at Lake Tahoe when I got the call about John winning the guided fly-fishing trip to Montana. He was the first one to help me organize John’s fly-fishing equipment. He was the first person I went fishing with after John’s death as the two of us went fly-fishing on a guided half-day trip that had originally been booked to include Bill, me, and John. Bill and Shash also gave me the story of Mis which was selected by a Celtic storyteller who chooses a mythological story to match a personal story and then records the story for the person receiving it. This mythology, along with these other stories, weaves throughout the book giving Bill a distinct presence in this memoir.

You weren’t into fly fishing before you met your husband however, you spent a lot of time fly fishing with him and continued after he passed. It seems like it was part of your grieving process.  Can you tell us more about that?

As the center of the story does involve the fly-fishing trip to Montana and my promise to scatter John’s ashes by trout stream or river along with the fact that fly-fishing was an essential part of John’s life, it quite naturally become an integral part of the memoir. It was important to set the stage for this trip by sharing the stories of past fishing adventures and misadventures as well as to write of the metaphoric nature of fishing and watery worlds and how they connect with grief and, particularly letting go. In fly-fishing there is a technique called catch and release which, I believe, speaks to the nature of loss. We engage in our lives, in our relationships a bit like when we hook a fish at the end of our rod. But then it’s time to release that wild fish back into the stream, returning it to its environment. So, it is when we release a loved one after they have left us to continue a journey that we cannot be a part of, to travel to someplace we cannot go and, in the end, cannot know because it is not our path to walk.

This memoir is written from the perspective of a deeply emotional inner experience of trauma, grief, and transformation.  What was it like to write the book from this place and how does it feel to show yourself to the world in this way?

I don’t remember making a conscious choice to write from the shattered inner experience of the death of my husband. The books I have written on cancer offered my subjective experiences as a way to join with my readers but quickly moved to a format more academic in nature. Surviving the Storm: A Workbook for Telling Your Cancer Story was written for people who had been diagnosed with a life- threatening illness, their partners, families, and caregivers so the focus was on self-help in regards to the understanding, support, and healing of these people’s experiences.  Psychosocial Care of Cancer Survivors: A Clinician’s Guide and Workbook for Providing Wholehearted Care was designed to educate health care clinicians professionally and speak to how their personal needs are impacted in the intensity of the work that they do. These books are of an academic nature so the viewpoint while personal was brief and always in service of the particular topics that were being presented to the reader.

By contrast, I open Odyssey of Ashes: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and Letting Go with the chaotic, terrifying first moments of helplessly standing by while my husband died. Like an abstract painting where paint is thrown, splashed, and thrown onto a life-size canvas, my words flew onto the page.  While the manuscript went through rewriting and concentrated editing, the essence of the story remains raw and unfiltered.  The voice in every scene inevitably comes from within me and, in that way, I am sharing my innermost self with the world. My editor was the only person who read the work as it was being written so I’m imagining that people who know me may be shocked by the ways in which I speak of my struggles to say afloat as I swam in the turbulent waters of my grief.  As the book moved forward into publication, I began to have moments of panic at what I was releasing into the world for all to see.  But at this point, that ship has sailed and I have made peace with my decision to open my heart for all to see. 

Besides wanting to tell your story did you draw inspiration for your writing from any outside force like other authors, etc.?

The biggest inspiration in my life comes from my own work with death and dying as a psychotherapist. I am no stranger to this territory as I have guided people as they travel to the end of their lives. These people touch and inspire me with their courage every day of my life. 

There are three writers who inspire my work. The poet and essayist, David Whyte whose work is authentic and speaks to delving below the surface and into real places of discovery where one lets go of stale, dull conversations and turns them into alive and engaged dialogues. The other was the Beat poet, Diane di Prima (died in 2020) who was a teacher and mentor for me. A passionate, generous writer, she was the person who taught me to “write raw” and worry less about the audience than my own truth. The writer Neil Gamin inspires me to “color outside of the lines” and to value writing from a place of vulnerability. 

What is your favorite scene in the book? Why?

The scene in Montana where I am finding the place to scatter John’s ashes. It’s hard to pick a favorite as the entire book is deeply personal and each scene is written from a raw place within me and then splattered onto the page. When I read this scene, I have a visceral experience of the stormy day when I scattered his ashes beside the Madison River. The emotions come rushing back and I am once again, kneeling by a raging river, the mountains surrounding me turning from purple to black, wild winds blowing ashes into my face. The whole story is an odyssey but this particular scene conveys that it was an odyssey of love to bring his ashes to the Madison River, experiencing the loss of leaving them behind, and then the beginning of letting go of a life that no longer existed.

Which actress would you like to see playing the yourself from ‘Odyssey of Ashes’? Or why would you prefer your memoir not to become a movie?

Annette Benning would be the perfect choice to play me in a movie. Another one of my oldest and dearest friends shared this memoir with a screenwriter who has expressed interest in the possibility of co-writing a script. In one of our initial contacts, I told her that I had written one very bad play and another very bad short screenplay. She seemed unfazed and offered to help me with the writing of a screenplay. The book is so emotionally evocative for me that I am not sure that I want to continue to work on the writing of it. Do I need to let it go?  Do I need more time and space before embarking on turning it into a movie?  I do see possibilities for it as a film. I’m doing my usual inner reflection on this question and so far, don’t have clarity on what I want to do.

Tell us about your cover. Did you design it yourself?

No, it was designed by She Writes Press with my approval of the final cover.

How long did it take you to write ‘Odyssey of Ashes’ from concept to fruition?

I began making notes for the book when I decided to write it after learning that John had won the raffle prize of the guided fly-fishing trip and it was offered to me in the fall of 2016. I had a concept of a short book written in scenes that would take place from the early morning of his death through the trip to Montana. The trip to Montana occurred in July of 2017, a year after John’s death and this was when the book began to take shape.  My editor believed that I should extend the book beyond the moment of John’s death, the initial phases after his sudden disappearance and the trip to Montana and move forward into the aftermath of my experience of scattering his ashes into the next phase of my life. I finished the first draft in 2019 and then began the arduous process of editing and rewriting to pull together the finished manuscript which was delivered in late 2019.

Do you plan to write another book?  If so, please tell us about it.  If not, how are you keeping busy these days?

I would like to write a novel and I do have an idea that is meandering around in my mind. The story involves a homeless artist in my neighborhood, a kid who feels pressured to be someone he is not, an older woman who is dying of cancer. I’d like to spend some time learning about novel writing and working on crafting a book over a period of time that does not have deadlines. I’ve always admired writers who take years to write a book and I would like to give this space to my next project. I’ve made some notes at this point for this book but right now I am focusing on giving Odyssey of Ashes the love and attention it needs to enter the world. I’m “keeping my eye on the prize”!  While I wouldn’t call it keeping busy, I do have a psychotherapy practice which is extremely full as the issues of the pandemic have created a tsunami of need for those of us working in mental health. 

What book/s are you reading at present?

The Testaments by Margaret Attwood

Me and White Supremacy: Combat Racism, Change the World, and Become a Good Ancestor  by Layla F. Saad

Note: As a vegan blog, we do not agree with some of the views of the author.  Namely fishing, even catch and release. However, this is her story and personal life. We thank Cheryl Krauter for sharing her story of grief and resilience!

About Cheryl Krauter

(c) Nan Phelps

CHERYL KRAUTER is a San Francisco bay area psychotherapist with more than forty years of experience in the field of depth psychology and human consciousness. A cancer survivor, she is the author of Surviving the Storm: A Workbook for Telling Your Cancer Story (Oxford University Press, 2017) and Psychosocial Care of Cancer Survivors: A Clinician’s Guide and Workbook for Providing Wholehearted Care (Oxford University Press, 2018). She lives with her personal assistant, a cat named Amie.

Website: http://www.cherylkrauter.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/tellingcancerstories
Twitter: https://twitter.com/CherylKrauter

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