The Death of Me

***This is a 50 page piece.***

On January 29, 2006, Denise Grover Swank’s life changed forever.

On that afternoon, her husband of ten years crash-landed his malfunctioning single-engine plane in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. Dr. Darrell Swank suffered multiple fractures, and third degree burns over sixty percent of his body when the gas tank exploded as he crawled away from the wreckage.

Over the next five weeks, she struggled to be a mother to their children while she kept a near round-the-clock vigil at the hospital. Darrell’s survival was questionable from one day to the next, and even if he survived, would he be the same man he was before the crash? Did his fate depend on this test of her faith?

The Death of Me is the true story of a wife and mother living day to day through a fog of shock and unimaginable agony. And, alone in the aftermath, fumbling for some way to not only survive, but to thrive.

It is a story of pain, of release, of forgiveness. And of healing, resilience, and rebirth.

It is a story of a writer finding her voice.