"On October 6, 1981, I had a fifteen-and-a-half-hour surgery; it was autumn; the leaves were changing colour. The landscape was changing, and so was I. The lengthy surgery and long recovery left me with significant emotional, physical, and spiritual changes from my previous self. It had a profound effect on my family; my children lost the mother as they knew her. My husband lost his wife as he knew me. It was like a death that none of us were ready for; we didn't experience grief because I was still alive." Walk: With Each Step There's Hope begins with Rosaline growing up on a farm in Fraser Valley, British Columbia in the 1940s and 50s. Her verbally and emotionally abusive father eventually abandons the family when she is fourteen (events that affect her mindset and relationships for years to come), essentially ending her childhood as she steps in to fill the support role for her mother and younger siblings. At twenty, she married and raised four children during her twenty-two-year marriage. At the age of thirty-nine, the removal of a brain tumour (a benign acoustic neuroma) leaves her with a long-term hearing impairment, which leads her down a path of physical, emotional, and spiritual transformation. Years later, travelling alone on a three-month backpacking sojourn to the Maritimes she celebrates her sixty-fifth birthday; the kindness and affirmation she receives from strangers encourage her to share her story of hope with others. Little does she know as she embarks on this trip, that it will take her on the longest journey of all . . . from her head to her heart. Weaving poetry and affirmative quotes throughout the book, this candid and touching memoir is about resilience, courage, inspiration, family, love, abandonment, addiction, forgiveness, understanding, personal transformation, letting go of expectations, living in the present moment, and most of all, to keep walking through life . . . because with each step there is hope.
