Hello! I’m Danell Black
I’ve always loved writing, but it took 24 years, and my husband's death to find my voice again.
When I was young, I enjoyed writing. I did well in English, and in 10th grade, I had an article published in the local newspaper. My husband, Patrick, and I dated for six years before we were married.
We lived in separate cities during that time, and we didn’t have cell phones, email, or texting! So we wrote letters. A LOT of letters. Here is a blog post I wrote about all those letters. When we both graduated from college and got married, the need to write went away.
We were married for almost 24 years. We had two daughters, and we loved our life with them. We had our ups and downs, but I couldn’t have asked for a better life, and I know I was very blessed.
Everything changed on April 20, 2016, when Patrick was hit and killed while on an early morning bike ride. That was truly the worst day of my life. I would never say that anything good came out of that day. The girls and I learned to embrace life and move forward. I believe he would be proud.
I began writing again, mainly out of the need to put my emotions into words and record the incredible love and kindness surrounding us on that day. I started a blog called My Life After Patrick, and that was an excellent outlet for me.
I started the blog for the girls and me, but I grew my blog to a modest following of 300–400 people through sharing. Along the way, I discovered that my writing impacted other family members who were grieving and even strangers.
My husband’s death was a news story, and the local newspaper, The Fresno Bee, invited me to write a few opinion pieces. This was the same paper that published my story in high school. I wrote a shortened version of the Worst Day. Later, I wrote a letter to the Newly Widowed. I still didn’t call myself a writer.
As I started writing, I also discovered that I wanted a more meaningful career. I originally went to college to become a teacher. I was an elementary and then special education teacher for four years before deciding that wasn’t the career for me.
While I was deciding what to do next, I took a job at Aetna and stayed for 22 years. I made decent money, but it was stressful. Patrick’s life insurance left me in a position to do something different, and Aetna’s early retirement offer sealed the deal.
I enrolled in Grand Canyon University’s online program and began working on my Masters of Science in Professional Clinical Counseling.
I was fortunate to be able to focus on my degree and my girls. I took one class at a time. Eventually, I began dating, and after several bad starts and comical blog posts, I met Bruce, who just happened to share the same major cross streets as I did! We dated for a little over a year and were married in November 2019.
In April 2020, I finally graduated and began work as an Associate Professional Clinical Counselor. Yes, the pandemic robbed me of my graduation, but it’s not the worst thing that has ever happened to me!
Becoming a counselor opened my eyes to privilege, prejudice, racism, and social justice. My grief writing had dwindled with the demands of school, internship, and becoming a newlywed.
Since the new topics I was passionate about can be controversial, I limit what I write on my blog. So I joined Medium to have a new outlet. I submitted one of my first articles to the publication Progressively Speaking, and Medium selected it for curation.
None of my articles have gone viral, but it’s been fun having small amounts of money deposited each month. The best part is I finally feel that I am genuinely a writer! I am excited to join Illumination and look forward to contributing more!
