A Bergen Beach woman fulfilled her lifelong dream of becoming an author this summer — more than a year after succumbing to cancer.
Throughout her more than decade-long struggle with the fatal illness, author Michele Solomon pursued her passion for writing, but suffered rejection after rejection from publishing houses, and eventually despaired that her work would ever be printed.
But the writer’s son made his mother a promise to ensure her children’s book “The Adventure of Hardy the Horse” saw the light of day, and he ultimately succeeded after publisher SevenHorns released the book in July — he just wishes his mom was around to see it.
“She wasn’t able to get it published, and when the cancer came back and she grew sicker, she figured it was never going to happen,” said Jason Solomon. “My biggest regret of this whole process is that she can’t be here to hold it in her hands and see it for herself.”
Michele Solomon was diagnosed with leukemia in 2004, and while her first run-in with the disease ultimately ended in triumph, the Bergen Beacher’s brush with death would inspire her to follow her dreams and enroll in a creative-writing course at Kingsborough Community College, Jason Solomon said.
It was during that time that the budding writer authored a story about a horse named Hardy, the bespectacled, equine resident of Farmer Joe’s bucolic ranch, whose fateful decision to one day escape leads to a series of mishaps and the company of new friends.
“It is just so adorable, because Michele wore glasses all her life and this about a horse losing [his] glasses,” said Solomon’s aunt, Barbara Greenberg.
But the author struggled for years to get her book published, and, in 2015, doctors came to her with tragic news — the cancer had returned and it had spread throughout her body.
Michele Solomon died at the age of 58 in March 2018, and the author’s passing devastated her friends and family, who described the Bergen Beach writer as a loving, compassionate woman, who always put others before herself, even while she was battling cancer.
But the author’s posthumous victory in seeing her book published came as some consolation, if only for those she left behind, who imagine the joy she would have felt in seeing her lifelong dream come true.
“I think that she would be overjoyed,” said longtime friend Shelley Garcia. “I think it would have made her so proud.”
“The Adventure of Hardy the Horse” can be purchased on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and other online booksellers.
