“What is that smell? I have never smelled anything like this.”

My brother turned, looked me in the eye with tears in the corner of his, and said, “Cathy, that is the smell of death.” I stood speechless and simply nodded my head. I understood I was experiencing something that would stay with me for the rest of my life.”  Excerpt from Sirens, by Catherine Brooks

The recent news of the Los Angeles fires and devasting floods in North Carolina and surrounding areas make us pause. We are reminded how many things are out of our control and how what we know as our world can change in a matter of minutes. I learned this lesson as a teenager growing up in rural Pennsylvania. A devasting tornado tore through our area, taking homes, businesses, and lives with it. I remember walking through the devastation down the road with my brother and thinking the thoughts above. I share about it in my recently released book, Sirens, Unpacking Painful Past Experiences to Lead Us to Better Relationships, Communication, and Healing.

I grew up in a generation where you were to “deal” with things and move on. You were taught to shove your emotions down inside and not unpack them. Even though I knew as a child it didn’t feel right, I didn’t know what to do with those feelings. As I got older, I began to realize the destruction we create by not dealing with traumatic events in our lives. I wrote Sirens as a reminder of how we can go through a lot of hard things in life and just keep shoving them down inside and not deal with them or we can begin to address the pain by using the tools available to us.

In Sirens, I share personal stories and insights from others to help you recognize areas you may need to unpack as well as resources that may help you. We don’t want to carry the trauma, and we certainly don’t want to pass it on to future generations. Healing is hard work, but it’s transformative.  

With natural disasters, I learned that people can react to it differently and some may need help walking through it mentally as well as physically.  You may not even experience the effects of trauma until months afterward. Awareness is the first step. Sirens is about helping you take that first step. 

About Catherine:

Catherine Brooks grew up in rural Pennsylvania and was a farmer’s daughter. After completing her master’s degree at The Pennsylvania State University in 1992, she and her sled dog headed north to Alaska. Catherine worked various jobs in interior Alaska over the next three decades, including a youth development specialist, business owner, nonprofit director, tourism operator, office assistant and manager, lab technician, professor, and local government specialist. She especially loved her time teaching at the University of Alaska Fairbanks in the Department of Alaska Native Studies and Rural Development.  Catherine swears she had the best students in the world in the program.  She was honored with emeritus status in May 2024. Her husband has been beside her for the majority of the journey. They have been blessed with three wonderful children and three incredible grandchildren. They currently own Write22 together, where she loves to encourage, empower, and educate people. Her husband creates beautiful antler jewelry inspired by his Alaska Native heritage and growing up in a subsistence lifestyle. She and her family call Fairbanks, Alaska, home but spend most of the summer on the Yukon River at her husband’s family fish camp, where skills and traditions are shared with the next generation.

Connect with Catherine:

Website: www.write22.com
FB: https://www.facebook.com/cathy.brooks.77 or Write22
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cathywrites22/
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/cathybrooks907
Book: Sirens, Unpacking Painful Past Experiences to Lead Us to Better Relationships, Communication, and Healing is available on Amazon at https://a.co/d/1gULn2f