Donelle Gress is a unique individual with a passion for artistic expression, humor and has always marched to the beat of a different drummer.
After enduring a difficult and painful childhood at elementary school, the subject of ridicule and bullying, she was still a curious and adventurous child who explored life in the woods and created works of art from found objects. She always stived to be the best at something to make up for her dismal early years. This led her down many career paths at which she always excelled and won awards for her ingenuity yet none of which left her feeling fulfilled and happy. Her never-ending quest for happiness was relentless.
In her mid-twenties, she married and was blessed with two lovely and extraordinary children but endured a physically and mentally cruel relationship filled with terror and sickness and finally divorced after five years. She then found herself a single parent of two small children. She remarried seven years later to yet another disappointment and divorced after a shocking discovery about her husband thirteen years later. During this time, she was diagnosed with lupus, a debilitating disease and continues suffering its exhausting symptoms daily. At first it was like living in a nightmare, but these limitations were no hurdle for this dream seeker. Her tenacity eventually pulled her through to face the worst yet to come.
Several years after her last divorce she faced with the death of her father. It was all consuming. Panic and dread ensued. It was too much. I was life altering. It was unexpected. It was the end of her world. Somehow, someway, a force greater than herself placed her in front of the computer, manipulated her fingers and enabled her to express how her wounded heart felt and the gaping hole that was left inside. It opened the flood gates to her soul allowing words and images to splash onto paper like raindrops on pavement.
It is through her life struggles that her dreams, aspirations, and life goals would finally come to fruition. She is now a successful entrepreneur living out her artistic vision in two boutiques of her own. She surrounds herself with women who share her vision and has found joy with her many followers, customers, and people she now calls friends. Her father’s passing has inspired this book and has helped her heal and become who she is today, at peace, grateful and joyful.
