Sharing more of Lulu's wisdom
The wisdom of a 4-year-old girl nicknamed Lulu continues even seven years after her death.
“Lulu Decorates Daddy,” published in June, is the second children’s book written by Davenport native Gretchan Pyne remembering the words of her daughter, Olivia, who died in a freak accident during 2001, when a bicycle rack fell over on her, crushing her heart.
“She’s an ordinary girl teaching extraordinary life lessons,” Pyne, 45, said in a telephone interview from her home in Wareham, Mass.
The first book, “Lulu’s Rose-Colored Glasses,” was released in 2004. That included an anecdote Pyne had written down before her daughter died. The remainder of the stories in the Lulu series — Pyne has at least six more planned — are these she recalled shortly after her daughter’s death.
“I just wanted to remember every little thing about Lulu, every little moment, every little time that she made an impact in our life,” she said.
“(The idea) was to get all these stories so I’d always remember and never forget these moments that I got to have with my little girl. It wasn’t until they were written that we thought we should create these children’s books because Lulu had important things to say,” Pyne said. “We realized that, in every story, Lulu is the teacher in life and the parents or the adults are the students. We forget what’s important, we get busy, we forget what the real true value is in life. We’re too busy trying to make a buck or get the laundry done.”
In “Lulu Decorates Daddy,” the family — Pyne’s husband, Warren, is a chiropractor and the couple also has twin boys, now 16 — is camping and Lulu’s father has “woken up on the wrong side of the bed,” Pyne said.
Lulu — a nickname given to Olivia when she was a baby — finds a carpet of wildflowers and brings them back to the campsite. While wondering what to do with the flowers, Lulu suggests “let’s decorate Daddy.”
“She’s transforming her father,” Pyne recalled with a laugh. “She got him in touch with his feminine side.”
Pyne will autograph copies of the book Saturday at Borders in Davenport. She and her family are returning for the homecoming at Palmer College of Chiropractic in Davenport, where Warren got his degree and met the former Gretchan Russell, then a beautician.
As with the first book, a portion of the proceeds will go to a scholarship in Olivia’s name at Palmer.
The first book brought national attention to Pyne and her family, including a feature in Ladies Home Journal and an interview on ABC-TV’s “Good Morning America.”
While working on her third book, she also is writing her memoirs and starting Lulu’s House of Hope in a cottage on their property. At the cottage, she has begun a bereavement group for other parents who have lost young children. The first meeting was last week and included a ceremonial release of 100 butterflies.
“I’m hoping Lulu and I can offer them hope because, you know what? You can find happiness again. You can carry them with you. You can find joy again,” she said. “That’s the message I want to get out to these parents.”
David Burke can be contacted at (563) 383-2400 or dburke@qctimes.com.