Shades of Blue (3 page)
In
Shades of Blue
you will see three characters named through my donation of Forever in Fiction to various auctions. The first is Francesca (Frankie) Gianakopoulos, a six-year-old girl from Plainfield, Illinois. Frankie was chosen to be Forever in Fiction by her mother, Melissa Gianakopoulos, who won the item at the Trinity Christian School auction. Frankie is a petite girl with dark hair, dark eyes, and a short, sassy haircut. According to the people who know her, one word describes Frankie — angelic. People say they can see an angelic aura about her that is demonstrated in the way she looks at others, the way she speaks, and even the way she moves. She touches the hearts of everyone she meets.
At age three, Frankie was diagnosed with Idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura — a blood disease that causes her to be severely bruised most of the time. Her blood count is constantly being checked. Although she is forced to deal with an illness she doesn’t understand, she has a very strong faith and loves life with a passion. She is especially fond of Lincoln Logs, Legos, and Hot Wheels cars, and she is best friends with all the boys in her class. She is a tomboy who loves seeing her grandparents in Las Vegas, and she is thrilled with visits to Disneyland. She needs to be careful she doesn’t get hurt, but that doesn’t stop her from playing with her older siblings — Lexa and Christopher. Frankie also loves reading and math. Despite her weekly visits to an oncology clinic, those who love her have committed Frankie to God, and they believe she is in His hands.
In
Shades of Blue
, Frankie appears as one of the kids in Emma Landon’s classroom. Because of her illness, Frankie helps Emma understand the value of life — no matter what. Frankie and Emma are very close, and Frankie’s faith is one of the factors that ends up helping Emma understand that she must find redemption if she’s to move on in life.
Melissa, I pray that your family will be blessed by the placement of Frankie in the pages of
Shades of Blue
, and that when you read this book you will always see some of your precious little girl here, where she will be Forever in Fiction.
Also honored in
Shades of Blue
is seventeen-year-old Kristin Palazzo. Kristin was born in October of 1989 and quickly became a loving little Daddy’s girl. Growing up, she loved her black lab, Mollie, her Grammy, and her cousins. She enjoyed taking trips to the American Girl doll store and staying at the family’s cabin in the mountains of West Virginia. She loved photography, cooking, reading, swimming, and creating artwork. She enjoyed taking close-up photos of flowers and God’s beauty in nature. She had long, straight, dark brown hair and brown eyes. She was tall and slender with a wonderful laugh and a lovely smile. Kristin was quiet, kind, adaptable, unpresuming, caring, creative, easygoing, perceptive, lighthearted, and intelligent. She was humble and never wanted to be the center of attention, and she loved the Lord with everything she had. She was close to her younger sister, Stephanie, sixteen.
When Kristin was ten years old, she got a virus, a simple case of pneumonia. Her condition worsened that night and she was air-transported to the pediatric intensive care unit at Hershey Medical Center. There, she was diagnosed with myocarditis, and she spent seven weeks on life support fighting for survival. Several times she went into cardiac arrest. Though doctors at first gave her a grim prognosis, her family and community rallied in prayer around her, and Kristin finally recovered enough to go home. But she did so with a very damaged heart.
Eventually Kristin was able to return to school, but with every year her heart grew larger and weaker. When she was in sixth grade, she accepted Jesus as her Savior and went on to be the sort of friend who prayed constantly for others — despite her medical issues. At one of her last doctor appointments, the staff told her that she had perhaps one of the largest hearts in the country, a truth that held more than one meaning for her family. Even so, her heart was functioning well enough that she wasn’t put on a heart transplant list. She was, though, limited in her daily activities. Just after her seventeenth birthday, Kristin was scheduled to have a pacemaker and a defibrillator implanted into her chest. In anticipation of the surgery, her friends at school threw her a pre-pacemaker party. Even though she didn’t like the attention, she loved the support and concern from her friends and classmates that evening.
Throughout the experience, Kristin learned not to get too upset about the small things in life. She was very brave and rarely complained as she tried to live as normally as possible. In fact, many people had no idea what she was going through medically.
The day after Kristin’s seventeenth birthday, she was taking a walk across the street when she went into cardiac arrest. By the time the ambulance got there, her dad had been performing CPR for thirty minutes. They got her heart started again and took her to Hershey Medical Center for six more weeks. They tried their best, but on November 26, 2006, she went home to be with Jesus. She was a junior at Lancaster Mennonite School, where her parents dedicated the Kristin L. Palazzo Gallery at the school. The gallery presently displays Kristin’s art, but also the work of other students. The people who loved her and knew her best like to say that Kristin will be a much bigger part of their future than their past.
At Kristin’s life celebration service with Mount Joy Mennonite Church in Mount Joy, Pennsylvania, more than six hundred people attended. Her favorite Bible verse, Psalm 46:1 – 2, was recited for all to hear. People left the Service that day forever touched by Kristin’s life.
Kristin’s life was honored Forever in Fiction by her parents — Rick and Lynne Palazzo, who won the item at the Lancaster Mennonite School Auction. I chose to make Kristin a student volunteer for Emma Landon’s grade school children, a role that gives Kristin’s character the chance to make an impact on Emma. Kristin’s love for friends and God, her faith and courage, make her another great example for the struggling Emma. I pray that Kristin’s life will touch many of you reading this book as well, and that her parents, family, and friends are honored by her placement in the pages of
Shades of Blue
, where her memory will live on Forever in Fiction.
Finally, in this book, Cassandra Rae Armijo will be honored as well. Cassandra’s life was very brief, but it was also brilliant. She was stillborn at just less than six months’ gestation. She had beautiful eyelashes, a cute nose, and she was a very active baby until the time of her death. Cassandra would’ve been the firstborn for her mother, the first niece and the first grandchild for her mother’s side of the family. She since has two brothers who will not meet her until heaven — Nathaniel and Micah.
Cassandra was placed Forever in Fiction by her aunt, Joanna Williams, the sister of Cassandra’s mother — Elisabeth Armijo. I chose to have Cassandra be the baby of one of Emma’s teaching colleagues. In doing so, Emma has the chance to see the reality of life that grows within a woman during a pregnancy. This helps to create an awareness for Emma about life and its sanctity. Joanna, I pray that you and your sister and your family are honored by the placement of Cassandra in
Shades of Blue
, and that you will always be touched when you see her in the pages of this book, where her memory will continue to touch hearts and change lives as she lives on Forever in Fiction.
For those of you who are not familiar with Forever in Fiction, it is my way of involving you, the readers, in my stories while raising money for charities. To date, Forever in Fiction has raised more than $100,000 at charity auctions across the country. Obviously, I am only able to donate a limited number of these each year. For that reason, I have set a fairly high minimum bid on this package so that the maximum funds are raised for charities.
If you are interested in having a Forever in Fiction package donated to your auction, contact my assistant, Tricia Kingsbury, at [email protected]. Please write
Forever in Fiction
in the subject line. Also, look for occasional offerings of Forever in Fiction on eBay — an attempt to give all my readers the chance to purchase this item while benefiting a charity of my choice.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Forever in fiction
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
About the Publisher
Share Your Thoughts
C
REATING THE RIGHT SPIN USUALLY CAME
easily for Brad Cutler, but this time he was struggling. Kotton Kids Clothing was the account of the moment, a lucrative campaign with a high-end product that should’ve been easy to work with.
He stared out the window and tried to focus. The stunning view from his downtown New York City office on the twenty-first floor of the Westmont Building was hardly conducive to figuring out family moments as they related to soft cotton clothing. Even so, the chaos of Manhattan wasn’t the problem. Brad could work anywhere, and on this day, creating a campaign should’ve been even easier. His office had been transformed, surrounded by soft pastel fabrics, instrumental lullabies, and poster-size images of children — all intended to take him from the frantic pace of the city into another world.
A world of babies and beginnings.
Brad turned away from the window and braced himself against the solid walnut table that spanned the center of the spacious room. Never mind that he didn’t have personal experience with babies. This account shouldn’t stump him. He believed in the product — Kotton Kids, a luxury high-end organic cotton clothing and bedding line for pampered babies and toddlers. Brad understood the assignment.
But between his understanding of the task and his ability to create unforgettable ad copy stood a virtual wall of stone. Brad couldn’t scale the jagged sides no matter how he tried, and worse, there was no logical reason for the barrier. Except maybe one. A sick feeling came over him and he closed his eyes. Earlier today he glimpsed the dance of shadows from long-ago days, the whisper of a memory from an old, almost-forgotten place in his soul.
He stared out the window and the feeling came around him again. The faint smell of summer sand on a North Carolina shore, the shades of blue where sky and sea blur, the feel of her beside him. A memory he hadn’t dared think about in years.
You’re losing your mind, Cutler
, he told himself.
What could any of that have to do with an ad campaign? Help me focus, God.
He raked his fingers through his blond hair and glanced at the clock on the wall. Almost noon. In a few minutes his boss, Randy James, would stop in to see how he was doing, and Brad had no idea what to tell him. Randy James had trusted him with a project that could take the company to the next level this year … and for years to come.
Randy James. His boss, and in six weeks, his father-in-law.
He paced to the far end of the room where a display of the cotton product covered two chairs and the end of the table. The colors were soft, muted pinks and blues and tans. He picked up a plush blanket and ran his thumb along the satin edge. He’d come up with only a few slogan lines so far, and nothing he was crazy about.
Babies deserve better …
The words ran in his mind again and he edited them.
Your baby deserves better.
That was closer, but still not the slam dunk he was looking for.
Because your baby deserves the best …
He let the words hang in the hallway of his heart for a few seconds.