A Celebration of Women

is elated to Celebrate the Life of yet another amazing woman, trail blazing in our world.

Devoting her support to children experiencing nature, CPA, MBA and sitting on three charitable foundation boards, as well as raising a family of her own, this powerhouse has expanded her journey of life, into the realm of the written word, and has created a legacy that will leave ripples in the water of life forever.

We welcome this spiritually driven soul into our family with this Celebration of her Life.

WOMAN of ACTION

Nancy S. Kyme

“She grew up in South Bend, Indiana, attended Indiana University, has a BA in Accounting from Minot State University, passed the CPA exam in North Dakota and completed the executive MBA program through the University of Nebraska at Omaha. She is a military wife and the mother of two grown children. As well as being an author, she is employed by the Well Stone Corporation, as CFO.”

Her father had sent her to summer camp as a teenager, in part to separate her from the crowd of friends she was run­ning with at the time.

During a weeklong camp reunion several years ago, Kyme began to recall just how much she’d changed since her teenage years in South Bend, Ind.

“I felt like I had angels over my shoulder saying ‘pay attention,’” Kyme said.

That experience ultimately laid the groundwork for “Memory Lake,” a story of a mother, a daughter and memories of sum­mer camp. The book — which took five years of writing and two years of editing — was finally published in the summer of 2011 and is available on tradi­tional and ebook format. Kyme calls “Memory Lake” 95 percent true and 5 percent storytelling. Before publishing it, she ran the experiences in the book by many of her camp friends to make sure her memo­ries matched up as much they could for a fictional narrative.

While many remembered the same experience differently, only one objected to the charac­terization of a certain event.

Growing up in the 1970s, Kyme said she would have never been a writer if it weren’t for the advent of the computer. She could never imagine putting pen to paper. It would have been too much to handle for the orga­nized, numbers-crunching side of her brain.

She even hired a typist to do her term papers at Indiana University but found herself wanting to make changes after her professor graded them.

“Charles Dickens wrote the whole thing out in his head,” Kyme said. “That’s not happen­ing for me.”

Though “Memory Lake” was well received by friends and critics, Kyme said she has no intention of quitting her day job as chief financial officer ofWell Stone Corporation. She’s worked there for 20 years and loves the ebb and flow of business.

However, her newfound liter­ary success has motivated her to re-start the science fiction novel, which she intends to be part one of a trilogy. But more impor­tantly, the former wild child was able to tell her coming of age story and bask in the glories of camp that many non-campers just don’t understand.

“The camp was a place where I found my faith,” Kyme said.

“And it was also where I gained a focus I wanted for the rest of my life.”

The Woman: Daughter and Mother Here, she reflects on two major events in a woman’s life: losing a mother and sending a daughter off to college.

“For many, many months after Mom had passed, I would pick up the phone to call her, to share my pain and sorrow of her passing, or the latest trial of parenting, only to set it down again, knowing she would never again be on the other end. How keenly I had felt the paradox of recovery; the one person who could lift me from the suffering was the reason for it.

Somewhere along the way, I had begun to hear my mom without the telephone. As my daughter’s high-school years wound down, I would hear Mom say, “You have to let her go. No more hovering about, arms wide-open, issuing gentle warnings and ultimatums.” When it came time to send her off to college in another state, I would hear Mom say, “Put on a smile, though you least feel like it, and send her off with encouraging words and a prayer for success.”

My daughter had been fifteen at the time of her death, on the verge of those turbulent teenage years. She grieved for her Gramsy, but she couldn’t really understand the level of my sorrow. She was entrenched in the self-absorbed years, just as I had been at her age, when it took all my focus and energy to keep up with a popular crowd while trying not to compromise my values through a land mine of peer pressure.

During those turbulent teenage years, I had hoped the kind, compassionate adult I had glimpsed at times within my daughter would return to stay and we would be the best of friends, as I had been with my mother. Now she is twenty-five and I marvel at the beauty of my mom’s wisdom and the power of prayer. I recently traveled overseas, beyond the range of emails and cell phones.

My daughter was experiencing life as a newlywed, in a strange state, with a new job, and desperately needed to talk. Unable to reach me, she began to envision a world without Mom. Inexplicable pangs of worry assaulted me across the miles, and I sensed an overpowering need to phone her immediately upon my return.

Full of tears, she said, “Mom, now I know how you felt when Gramsy died! It must have been awful to think you could never talk to her again!”

An entire country now separates us, but my daughter frequently picks up the phone to call me. I hear laughter and tears on the other end, the budding wisdom of a future mother, and I hear my own mother, speaking through me saying, “It will be all right, this too shall pass.”

The Philanthropy

She is currently a member the Mount Vernon Ladies Association and serves as director and officer of three non-profit entities in Virginia; Director and Sec/Treas of The Wellspring Foundation (of Virginia), Director and Sec/Treas The Clearbrook Foundation (of Virginia), and President and Director of The Tackett’s Mill Foundation.

The first two benefit alternate learning environments for children. The latter preserves green space and a small lake within a commercial area.

Two events coincided to bring “Memory Lake” to fruition. First, the author attended a camp reunion. Then, she joined a book group. The reunion stirred memories of a rich, complex story. Her book group unwittingly encouraged her to tell it.

The result is “..a luminous non-fiction, destined to become a classic”. The book evokes not only a richly remembered past but also a calm present whose serenity has been gained only by great sacrifice.

Well drawn, identifiable characters (whom we like and wish the best for), authentic dialogue, exact and evocative word choice, beautifully detailed description and poetry worked into the prose at every turn of the page create a world apart we have either experienced or wish we could have.”

The Book

“Memory Lake, the forever friendships of summer”, Vantage Point Books, is my first novel. It is a coming of age memoir, told in flashbacks, about real women who generously allowed me to tell our story. Set along the shores of Lake Michigan near the Sleeping Bear Dunes, memories unfold toward the present day as its main characters reunite for a camp reunion.

It took five years to write and 2 years to edit and was picked up by the first publisher I approached. Since its release last July, I have enjoyed meeting women of action at book signings and through book groups and Internet promotion. I look forward to meeting many more as (hopefully) the book gains more exposure by winning the Inspirational category of the ‘2012 Next Generation Indie Book Award”.

What the Reviews are Saying

‘ With this book, Kyme joins the ranks of authors like Alice Sebold, A. S. Byatt, Barbara Kingsolver, Alice Munro, Laurie Colwin and Anne Tyler, who write about ordinary life and its implications and who illuminate matters of the heart with skill, insight and subtlety. I pray that she has many, many more stories in her heart and mind for all of us who need to remember, to hope, to be unafraid, to move on and to love. …’

A Celebration of Women

welcomes this wonderful soul into our Alumni of WOMEN of ACTION, with open arms.

Brava Nancy!