FEAST YOUR EYES by Myla Goldberg

 Since the New Year I have been reading a lot.

Delainie and Jesi are doing the same.

When Del finished the book,

FEAST YOUR EYES by Myla Goldberg,

she loved the way she wrote and encouraged me to read it.

I was interested because it is written in a journal style,

and I love me a journal!

I was also interested because the book is based on a photographer in the 50's.

What a book it has become for me!

My Dad was a photographer back in the 40's and 50's

but I was born in the Instamatic world.

Where you took your film to the drugstore and they developed it for you.

I never thought much about how my Daddy did what he did

mostly because he retired when I was three.

the Lillian in the book brought me back to 

a place I had never been before.

Back to my Daddy's studio and dark room.

the art it was back then to develop a photo, the intricate

mechanics that had to be done by the photographer himself.

I wondered how many hours my own Dad spent in his darkroom

going over photos he took only to see they were not

what he wanted and started over.

Why he said at weddings, he brought two cameras because 

if something happened to the first set of photos there was back up.

The last thing he ever wanted was to ruin the photos of a new bride.

My Dad, like me was an artist, not just a photographer.

These images would have been enough to have me 

fall in love with this book.

However, there was more waiting for me.

Lillian (in the book) also gets cancer in 1970

and my cancer treatments started in 1968 and ended about 1972.

It never really ended but chemo and radiation did.

I was reminded of the miracle my life has been.

I don't speak about it much anymore because honestly,

I don't think many are interested so many years later.

This book reminded me that I am a survivor of a disease that 

 at the time there were very little who survived.

Hearing Lillian's journey through her chemotherapy and

doctors telling her that although she was in remission,

 her cancer would come back and it if it didn't

kill you, the chemotherapy would.

How far we have come in the cancer world is fascinating!

I don't want to give away the ending to this great book 

but if you are a reader, its one for your list.

As for me, my life is forever changed because of

the writings of Myla Goldberg.