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Shirley had planned to write a book on women thriving into old age. But life had other plans, compelling her to confront her own reality. Her story will speak to anyone who has loved deeply and found the courage and strength to love again. |
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Shirley Melis is a longtime business writer, travel writer, and newspaper columnist who traveled the world interviewing everyone from busboys to heads of international organizations before launching a career in public relations in Washington, D.C. With Banged-Up Heart, she now takes her writing in a new direction, delving deeply into her own personal story of finding love late, losing it early, and discovering the strength to choose to love again. It is a fascinating odyssey, a journey both creative and erotic as Shirley and John work lovingly together to blend their dreams—until a mysterious bump on his forehead starts them on a tragic struggle against the dark hand of fate.
A graduate of Vassar, Shirley Melis has created an intimate memoir bearing eloquent witness to the kind of wild trust that can grow in the heart of an ordinary woman thrust into circumstances that few others must face. Now retired, she lives in Galisteo, New Mexico. “Remember, Shirley, YOU are alive!” These words from a virtual stranger changed Shirley Melis’s life. Widowed nearly two years, she took off her wedding rings and stepped out of her cocoon. Wings barely dry, she fell deeply in love with a man who shared her dreams of travel and encouraged her writing. Inspired by his love of the southwest and his skill at photography, she retired to devote full time to realizing their dreams of making books together. His untimely death at 59 left her a widow for the second time in four years. Disbelieving and longing to recapture the reality of their star-crossed love, she started writing the deeply personal account of love and loss that became Banged-Up Heart.
Shirley had always welcomed opportunities to experience a different world. A year in Tunisia in her teens whetted her appetite for travel; known as “The Tahoe Traveler,” she spent time in Paris, Yugoslavia, Greece and Lebanon, reporting on her experiences for the Tahoe Daily Tribune. A series of eclectic jobs provided fodder for her column. Responding to an ad seeking movie extras for the futuristic comedy, “The Day the Fish Came Out,” she hopped on a bus to mosquito-infested Galaxidi, Greece, where she was commandeered by the PR honcho to write press releases until director Michael Cacoyannis whisked her into make-up and wardrobe for a day’s shooting. Before leaving Greece for Lebanon, she spent a couple of months as a life guard/swimming instructor at the Athens Hilton, almost forgetting she was in a foreign country. A longer stint as a governess for the young sons of a Greek shipping magnate was interrupted by a bloodless coup that put a military dictatorship in power. Later she forged a career in public relations in Washington, D.C., and traveled widely to write free-lance travel stories, selling to newspapers across the country. She wrote about Gaudi’s sinuous sculpture in Barcelona, and an architect’s luxurious underground hideaway on the island of Lanzarote, where grapes thrive on fields of once-molten lava. Her story about a disastrous trip to Peru, where she spent a night in jail as a suspected thief was published in The National Observer. |
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“If you haven’t already
You will lose someone you can’t live without,
And your heart will be badly broken,
And you will never completely get over the
Loss of a deeply beloved person.
But this is also the good news,
The person lives forever
In your broken heart that doesn’t seal back up
And you come through, and you learn to
Dance with the banged-up heart.”
- Anne Lamott, Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith
You will lose someone you can’t live without,
And your heart will be badly broken,
And you will never completely get over the
Loss of a deeply beloved person.
But this is also the good news,
The person lives forever
In your broken heart that doesn’t seal back up
And you come through, and you learn to
Dance with the banged-up heart.”
- Anne Lamott, Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith