Troubles turn to good deeds

Dec 12, 2007

We can all think of examples of people who have made something good out of a difficult time in their lives.

We see them all the time, visiting schools, giving motivational speeches, showing up on the talk show circuit. We might even personally know people who give us inspiration by turning their troubles into something positive. Such is the case with Susan Arnold.

South River’s clerk-administrator did not set out to write and publish a book about her father’s cancer, and how her family coped with it. She kept a journal for those months, and only after the fact did she realize that it was just the sort of thing she herself had needed earlier in her father’s illness.

Indeed, there are many of us who react to a crisis, or any significant change in our lives, by heading to the library or the bookstore at the earliest opportunity. We hit Google and Wikipedia, and read every useful thing we can possibly get our hands on. Why do we do this? The obvious reason is to educate ourselves; to know what we can expect and what to do about it. But it’s also about coping emotionally. By arming ourselves with knowledge, we can feel a little less powerless.

The publishing industry knows this, which is why the stores are packed with just this sort of book. Unfortunately, most of the help is for the patient themselves. A prolonged illness is hard on the whole family. Everyone is on an emotional roller coaster, everyone has questions, and everyone has a part to play.

Arnold recognized the need, and put her own personal journal out there for public consumption as A Bump in the Road: One Family’s Journey with Cancer.

And she did it herself. Self-publishing, although easier than ever before, is still a significant commitment. To do it well requires an author to shell out a substantial sum of money for editing, layout, graphic design and the like, before a copy ever hits the press. People don’t self-publish to make money, they do it because they want to share something enough to spend their own money on it, and if the book recovers its setup costs, it’s doing pretty well.

And there we have something very positive. But it doesn’t stop there.

This book, originally written for one person then published at personal expense, is actually selling well enough that it might make some money. This is what every self-published author hopes for, even as they doubt it will happen.

Certainly, nobody would complain if Arnold simply kept the royalties. She earned it. She put in the effort and invested the money. But her personal ethics won’t allow that. It would be profiting not only from her own family’s troubles, but those of the buyers as well. They aren’t buying out of idle curiosity, after all.

So, Arnold has decided the proceeds will go to a camp for children with cancer and their families. This personal journal of a very difficult time is helping people twice over.

No doubt Arnold’s face will be turning a little red as she reads this. In her interview with Andy Campbell, she stressed that she is not someone comfortable with being in the public eye. We’re pretty sure she would rather not get such public praise as this for simply doing a good deed.

That’s why she deserves it.