Excerpt:

CHAPTER 1

Headstones & Crosses

          The windshield fogs slightly from the wet mist drizzling sadly from the low gray sky. Hoss is running sweet, but I wouldn’t expect anything less from a 1970 Mach One Ford Mustang. Aaron Lewis’s song “Country Boy” echoes in my head. A fitting song for driving on this long desolate Kansas highway. Forcing me to reflect on the purpose of this drive.
Having traveled this highway my entire life, today, for the first time, I realize just how lonely of a road it is. Nothing out here but a few farms dotting the rolling flat landscape exaggerating the emptiness leading to the Melbourne Cemetery. Pressing me to experience the loss and constant visions of Sara, again and again.
So far into my head, the periodic sway from the wipers screeching on the windshield startle me. I probably wouldn’t be as miserable had I made the funeral, but circumstances dictated. I wanted to be there, I needed to be there, I should have been there, after all, Sara was my daughter. After her mom died, I did the best I could with what I had. She was the one thing that gave me hope at a time in my life when things seemed dismal and bleak. A beautiful girl growing into a young lady full of promise, and energy only youth can give.
So many things had taken place these last several weeks. Honestly, this is the first opportunity I’ve had to say goodbye. Even now, I can’t stay long.
I park the mustang, walk to the graves and see the big sky meet the horizon giving grace to the air and a sense of peace, a feeling and appearance of home.
Aunt Jenny took charge of the arrangements as she’d promised. Her gentle controlling touch shows in the majestic white marble headstone placed next to Sara’s mother’s grave, almost matching in every way but size. Sara’s stone marker, being the child, is slightly smaller. The graves look over fertile soil that our ancestors had bought and paid for with money, sweat and blood.
An unforgiving drizzle moistens my face with the chill of winter killing the sense of peacefulness reminding me of the recent past, and the guilt pushes me to find the one responsible.
Sara didn’t know the truth in her death; I’m trying to understand the truth in her mother’s death that led to hers. Somehow related yet so far apart, nothing is as it appears, yet stares at you as I blindly believe in the falsehood of control. The beasts that they may be, be that which I have become.
Walking back to the Mustang, not wanting to leave, knowing I must seek closure. I take one good look around, not knowing when I’ll return, I slide into the seat of the car.
The Mustang’s speakers blare “House of the Rising Sun” by the Animals, I turn back onto the lonely road that led me here.
Heading back to what I now call home, replaying the recent past, analyzing the memories. Could I have done anything different? Anything that would have changed these tragic events?
The overwhelming memory transforms the cool nineteen-seventy Ford Mustang into the brand new four-wheel drive Ford Diesel Truck I had bought just several months prior. The weather turns from cold, gray and misty to bright and sunny as I remember the day this all started.

Brad grew up on a farm outside of Winchester Kansas learning the value of
hard work. Following college, Brad spent twelve years as a Paramedic
until his second back surgery ending his successful career where he
received several letters of commendation.

Brad spent time farming in his off days feeling the everyday pressures of
the weather, markets and juggling the debt that is associated with
large business. All the while, continuing to write songs and preform
at local venues. Following a music CD he produced named “Make
Believe” with eleven of his original songs and while in the process
of producing his second Album he realized his talent was more suited
for writing then music.

Of Kentucky Bourbon and coke,

As the World was spinning round, I knew I have to slow it down,

Cause I’m going nowhere fast, staring at the bottom of this glass…”
Nollen Bradley 2010

Don’t let the rough exterior fool you, for inside Brad is the heart of a
poet. Sometimes a tortured soul haunted by memories or questions. A
helpless romantic as seen in the poem ‘When We Flew’

Through these tears that hide the pain, I think of you… every memory
remains,

But, when we flew Girl we were something to see,

Higher than one life could ever be,

we flew so high we no longer believed… so we lost those dreams,

It saddens me, until I think about, when we flew Girl, cause we were
something to see…”

Nollen Bradley 2011

Brad takes the experience from the sweat stinging his eyes from the heat
on a hot July day in Kansas. The heartache from having to tell a
parent or a child that their loved one has died and there was nothing
he could do, to the struggles of trying to pursue a dream and
watching it crumble in front of him. Brad has developed a style that
draws on real life experiences to provide exciting yet believable
story lines that captivate readers. Writing unbelievable tales with
the realism of the struggles from everyday life in the painful cookie
cutter suburban age.