Gaylene Guillemin is a local author from Stoughton and she was at the library to promote her new book “Beyond Shattered Dreams.” Her story is one of going from Grief to Self-empowerment.

“I’m here to do a book signing and a presentation on my grief journey through my husbands illness. He actually came up with this illness in 2008 and he passed away in 2014. And its been a journey of many life lessons coming my way.”

Gaylene shared, “The biggest thing that I were to say is, just take one step at a time. Instead of doing things in 2.2 seconds and being good to yourself and realizing we only have control of our actions and reactions. And everything else around us we have no control of.”

When asked about how she came up with the name of her book, “The name of my book, Merv and I wanted to retire and go down south. And my dreams were pretty much shattered, be just made retirement. Well his illness actually forced him into retirement, he wanted to last a couple more years. So he retired in 2013 and then my world was shattered when he passed in 2014. So its actually the journey through that experience and learning to find myself.”

“I’ve been lucky because I had people come into my life that are very supportive, everybody comes in and they are either a lesson or support. I’ve been very fortunate with those lessons and my awareness and spiritually I have grown so much. I’m aware of the lessons that have come my way and have learned from them.”

“We can be whatever we want, the only thing that can stop us is us.” It is a great life lesson we can all take from.

When asked about sharing her story, “That is what grief is all about, sharing our story and honouring those that passed away. We want to remember them and talk about them. This has been very therapeutic for me and I’ve met so many wonderful people along the way. And my motto is that by shining my light, my hope is that people will want to shine their light.”

Her parting words were those of great advice to those grieving, “The most important message I can pass on is self-care and self-love, it is so important because we cannot give until we are actually receiving.”