Hills I Climbed Alone

First a Canadian by birth, then an American citizen, then an Air Force Veteran and a life long licensed practical nurse, Charlotte Freedly tells us her first-person narrative of so many family, work, and love life challenges. Many of us would hate to face even half of them. In no way would her patients or students ever guess the misery she lived in her quest to be loved - just to love and be loved for who she is. If ever there were a concrete intimate disclosure of 23 years of living in the Cycle of Violence, Charlotte educates us about it. All nurses will especially love her story, told so spoken from the heart of a caregiver who knows how to love almost too much. And for aging women, Charlotte has some eye-popping experiences to share about her sex life, her awakenings, her evolution and what pleasure and enjoyment can be open to many geriatric women who are told that dimension of their life is behind them, or as Charlotte puts it, dried up.

Instead of a rags to riches feel good memoir, Charlotte's journey is more like rags to rags while she keeps a stiff upper lip - at least when there is not a shot gun shoved in it. Charlotte gives us a story of a girl who came from nothing, worked in a factory at 15 after school, and made something of herself against many unforeseen odds, despite severe gross obesity and depression. There will not be a dry eye as the climax unfolds from right field, as we learn even more about the true grit of our heroine, Charlotte Freedly, climbing hills most of her life!