Deborah Keller

I was told I needed to write an author profile for my biography page. Humm, I thought this can’t be too difficult. Yeah right! I can write books, stories, poems, and plays about other people but about myself not quite as easy. Most people that know me think I am an open book but actually I am a very private person when you get right down to it. I can say all the known public things about myself. I have written since I was young, had a weekly column in my local paper as a high school student, won awards for poetry, was on school papers and annual staff, was a photographer for my college annual staff. Acted and sung in multiple stage performances. Had children, worked in EMS for four years, became a critical care RN. Had a few (yes a few) bad marriages. Went on to finally find a good one, began to write plays, books, and an operatic libretto. Became a period costumer for stage, costumed a PBS documentary for TV, resumed my photography, became a photojournalist for an online newspaper and published a novel. Whew….sounds like heady stuff. Well, it is and my head still spins when I actually write it down but is it what constitues “me”?

I have done all of the above things but what I really am is a survivor. It has not been an easy road for me, ever. I made it through a deeply troubled and traumatic childhood. I made it through a teenaged pregnancy and a short lived high school marriage. I made it through college, a bi-polar manic depressive ex-husband, a stroke at age forty, bankruptcy, a terminal diagnosis at age forty-four, the death of my oldest son, severe health issues and an almost paralyzing at times, self consciousness. How?

I was lucky, yes lucky. I was able no matter how dark and bumpy the road to believe that there was always light at the end and a smoother path. No matter what I never stopped believing. I believed in my children, my responsibly to them to be here and be an example. How could I ever ask my children to strive to achieve great things if I did not lead them by example. Don’t get me wrong I do have my “dark days” as I call them. Those days where you just can’t get out of bed but I have learned the truth that “tomorrow is another day.” You just have to get through some tough todays to get there.

This profile is supposed to be about me but actually “me” is so tied into my husband and children that it really is about us. My husband is the most brilliant man I have ever known. There is nothing he cannot do. He is the rock that holds steady for me and my children. We have never know such love and loyalty from anyone. My children are successful in their careers and even more important are good and caring people. Do I know how blessed I am? You bet I do!

This book “My Name Is Nancy” is her story, not mine. She came to me in my dreams and haunted my thoughts during the day while I was writing this book. I have come to love and respect her with each passing day. Why me, you may ask? Well, to that I say “Why not me?” After two years of researching her story I feel I understand her life, her passion, her devotion to her son. I understand that it was not her story that was important at the time but her son’s. His story is known. It is time to tell hers.

I hope you read her story and come away with a sense of who and what she was and how she forever changed not only a nation but the world. I will write other books but none as personal to me as this one. Stay tuned, for I am still on that rocky road headed towards the light and if you listen carefully on some days you will hear me singing. “Never stop believing.”

Deborah