Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Greg Messel is the author of Sunbreaks. He has spent most of his adult life interested in writing, including a career in the newspaper business. He won a Wyoming Press Association Award as a columnist and has contributed articles to magazines. Messel live in Edmonds, Washington, with his wife, Carol.

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In 1968, Dan and Katie are one of the hottest couples at Ballard High School in Seattle. He is the hero football player, and she is the beautiful cheerleader. These high school sweethearts believe theirs is a love that will never die.Life changes when Dan leaves Washington to start college at the University of California Berkeley and pursue his dream of working for a big time newspaper in the glamorous city of San Francisco. The quest for his dream occurs against the turbulent background of Berkeley and San Francisco in the 1970s as Dan and Katie go their separate ways.Now, thirty years later, Dan is back in his hometown of Seattle attending his mother s funeral. He s never stopped thinking about Katie, his long-lost love. But the two former high school sweethearts reconnect in a most unexpected way as the rest of the world grows more fearful of Y2K and the dawn of the twenty-first century. They are hoping that their love, once lost, can now be reclaimed.

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Expiation

Trafford Publishing

Chapter One

November 29, 1999

"Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending" - Maria Robinson

My sudden and unexpected return to Seattle was about to trigger a chain of events which would completely change my life. Three months from this date my career, my life in San Francisco with my daughter and everything I had known before would be radically altered.

Everyone was feeling the pressure of the uncertainty which surrounded the dawning of a new century, which would occur in just about a month. Fear had been spreading around the globe for months in anticipation of the calendar flipping over to 2000. As the final month of the 20th Century came, fear was so rampant that you could sense it and taste it. The fear was so real that it was being sold as a commodity in various forms.

However, not all change is to be feared. Change makes us uncomfortable. The wave of turmoil about to overtake my life would ultimately result in me becoming happier than I had been for years. Abrupt and profound events were about to occur.

The week had begun routinely. I was finishing my work day at the newspaper where I was a reporter. I was looking forward to a quiet Thanksgiving with my daughter, her boyfriend and the parents of my late wife. My twenty-two year old daughter was taking charge this year and was going to prepare the family meal.

I was putting the finishing touches on a story I was writing about a pending garbage strike which could hit San Francisco just before the holidays. I had 15 minutes until deadline, when my phone rang. It was my daughter. She had just received a call from Seattle informing her that my mother was found dead in her home about three hours ago. My mother's death had been completely unexpected despite her advancing years.

An anticipated joyous gathering for Thanksgiving was overshadowed by the sudden passing of my mother. Much of the day was spent communicating with my brother and sister and making travel arrangements.

I also contacted my employer to inform them of the family emergency. My early estimate was that I might be in Seattle for a couple of weeks. My editor expressed his condolences and then reminded me that I had not taken a day off for a very long time. My workaholic habits had become a topic at the newspaper with my boss for some time. He kept urging me to use some of my allocated days off to recharge my batteries. I was teased by my editor that San Francisco and the newspaper could actually function without me there.

San Francisco was renowned for its resiliency and had bounced back from many catastrophic events. My newspaper-the San Francisco Chronicle-had been operating for over a hundred years. I was assured that both the city and the newspaper had somehow found ways to cope in the past without me. My editor didn't want to use this time of bereavement as a chance to ping on me about taking some time off. I'm sure he was showing restraint when after informing him of my mother's death, I said I would need to take a couple of weeks off.

"Take all of the time you need," my editor replied.

I flew to Seattle to meet my brother and sister on Friday. We made funeral arrangements and began the process of putting my mother's affairs in order. My sister was already in Seattle on Thanksgiving when I talked with her. She was getting several things in motion and we jointly decided to have the funeral on Monday after the Thanksgiving weekend. My sister contacted the Seattle newspapers with obituary information and the time and location of the funeral, so my mother's passing would get the attention it deserved.

I flew out of San Francisco on the busy Friday morning after Thanksgiving. I didn't know that it would be much longer than a few weeks before I returned to my beloved city. I also did not realize that when the plane's wheels lifted off of the runway in San Francisco that events were now set in motion which would change my life forever.

The change would be the stuff of which dreams are made.

On Monday, as we entered the church, the congregation arose out of respect for my mother. I walked with my brother and sister as my mother's casket was rolled slowly down the middle aisle of the church.

It had been a gray, rainy Monday in Seattle and the sky was like a thick layer of gray cotton balls. There had been a dense overcast all day with no hint that the sun could ever penetrate the heavy blanket of clouds. The church was full of many of those people who had shared parts of my mother's journey through life. She had spent most of her days in the Seattle area since her entry into the world in 1916.

It was just after my mother's birth in January of 1916, that Seattle was hit with the Great Storm of 1916. It began to snow in Seattle in late January of that year. Before it was over on February 2, there were more than 21 inches of snow. It still stands as the largest snowfall ever in a city which rarely gets snow. I've seen old sepia toned pictures of piles of snow on Yesler Way downtown. Trolleys were stranded by huge piles of wet snow and there was no way of removing it. A large snowman blocked the sidewalk on Third Ave. and the dome of St. James Cathedral collapsed. There are pictures of turn-of-the-century-looking men in bowler hats looking perplexed at the huge piles of snow, perhaps wondering why God made the rain freeze and behave it such a strange way.

There were many intersecting lines between her life and the collective experience of those who populated the pews. My mother's mortality had lasted just over 83 years. My mother entered the world in the middle of the "great war", the war to end all wars supposedly, as American troops headed to Europe to fight the aggressors.

She was about two years old when the influenza epidemic hit the nation just as they celebrated victory, with masks over their noses and mouths to prevent the spread of the deadly plague. Mom was a teenager during the Great Depression and a young woman just as the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor as Hitler marched across Europe.

My father, who died five years ago, had survived the Pearl Harbor attack on one of the ships while regularly writing letters to my mother. He continued to fight in the South Pacific through the rest of the war. Dad finally reunited with my mother in Seattle where they were married in 1947. It was an incredible chunk of history which ran concurrently with my mother's life. She witnessed firsthand most of the major events of the 20th Century but she succumbed just weeks before the dawn of the new century.

Her three children, who now walked silently behind her, had hoped her journey would last a little longer but the end came suddenly and peacefully. My mother had a good life and, as far as I'm aware, enriched the lives of others she encountered. My brother Raymond was born in 1948 and my sister, Diane, came two years later. Finally there was me, who entered the family last- just two years after Diane.

The last time I talked with my mother we had made plans to get together at Christmas time in Seattle. My daughter Vicki had the holiday break approaching and was planning to come with me. Vicki is a beautiful blend of her Japanese mother and my gene pool. She was about five foot five, had thick black hair and large brown eyes like her mother. I'm proud of her as she finishes...