Thrive Like a Mother Podcast

Finding your red bird in the midst of grief and healing w/ Diandra F. Wing

• Ebony Fleming • Season 3 • Episode 33

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In this episode of Thrive Like a Mother, I chat with phenomenal author Diandra F. Wing, whose journey of resilience and remembrance is both heartbreaking and deeply inspiring. After suddenly losing her Aunt Shawn and beloved mother, Sandra, Diandra could have been consumed by grief. Instead, she found unexpected comfort in the appearance of a striking red bird during pivotal moments, offering a connection to the women she loved and lost.

 

We dive into her book, Red Bird, and explore how family, journaling, and being offered help can shape our healing. Diandra shares the profound pain of loss, the unique experience of navigating grief as a black woman, and how she learned to trust the signs from loved ones beyond this world.

 

Tune in as we discuss:

✨ How Diandra’s mother and aunt shaped her life and identity

✨ Recognizing and trusting signs from lost loved ones

✨ The challenges of grieving as a black woman

✨ How to support yourself and others through loss

 

If you’ve ever wondered whether your loved ones send messages from beyond, or if you’re looking for someone to speak life into your healing journey, this episode is for you.

 

🔗 Connect with Diandra:

 

📖 Purchase Red Bird here:


Thank you so much for listening in! If anything in this episode resonated with you, it would mean the world to me if you left a review or shared it with a friend or on social media.

And don't forget to tag me so I can personally thank you for helping me get the word out.

Follow and chat with me on Instagram:

Podcast account - @thrivelikeamother.podcast

Personal account - @thrive.empowered

Sending you light and love always!

Ebony Fleming:

Hey love, I'm Ebony and welcome to Thrive Like a Mother. On this podcast, we're scared for our truth, but that fear is what fuels us to truly live in it. You're in the right place if you feel like you're stuck in survivor mode and you're ready to step into who you were truly meant to be. I'll share resources and tools I use daily to help you in your journey towards a healthier mindset and to break the wheel of survival. The journey may not be easy, but you won't have to face it alone. I'm a mama of three, healing day by day from past trauma, and I'm on a mission to build a life I've always dreamed of but never thought was possible. So, love, if you're ready to believe in what's possible, let's link arms and thrive together. Hey, loves, I'm starting this episode with a warning that the upcoming discussion is going to be a sensitive topic On the Thrive Like a Mother podcast. I never want to do any harm, and I'd rather make sure that my number one priority is keeping in account your mental well-being. That's what's most important to me. So the upcoming topic might be a little bit triggering for some of you, and so I want to let you know if you need to pause the episode if it gets too heavy, feel free to do that. Or if you need to leave the episode and come back at a later time, please do that. Of course, I want you to be taken care of first. So before we get into the episode, let's just take a collective deep breath and let's get started.

Ebony Fleming:

Loves, welcome to another episode of the Thrive Like a Mother podcast, and I'm so excited today because we have a very special guest on with us. Her name is D'Andra F Wing and she is the phenomenal author ofa book called Redbird. Her memoir is powerful in the way that she explores love, unexpected loss and in the ways that the universe and our loved ones speak to us and send us signs of hope in the midst of our grief, and so I hope, my hope for today's episode is that it reaches whoever it needs to at the exact timing that it needs to, and I hope that it shows you that there is always hope and light, even in our darkest moments. So, without further ado, let's jump right in. Deandra, I am so honored to have you on the podcast today.

Ebony Fleming:

We literally met yesterday yes, yesterday and I knew instantly, the first time meeting you, that your story was one, really, that my listeners need to hear. But also just our community, yeah, especially the Black community, because the things that you talk about in your book, the things that you share, it's often something that we don't communicate in our community about, yeah, and so when we got off our call yesterday, I mainly went. I went and I bought the book and started reading. I read the first few chapters and I'm sitting here and I'm telling my husband I was like how, how amazing is it that God saw fit to just bring us together? Because right now, especially especially in the times that we're having right now, we're all different, dealing with so many different types, yeah, of grief, different types of loss. Right now, like, your story is so pivotal.

Ebony Fleming:

So I want to talk about a few things. First of all, the way that very first chapter, the way that you wrote about your aunt Sean, like when I was reading it I was just sitting there. I'm like gosh, I just want to give, I just want to give her, and like her entire family, a hug, because everything that you guys have gone through and so suddenly, yeah, just just so much to handle. And the fact that you saw fit to take all of that and put it into a book, yeah, so that it could help someone else. But I'm going to let you talk about the book and I really just want to start there, just sharing, share what you want to share about the book. Yeah, and really talk about just like what inspired it.

Diandra F. Wing:

You know, I really. It took me a long while and this is after my aunt, sean, suddenly passed. It took me a while to come to grips with it, and when people speak of grief it often takes on a philosophical tone, as if there's some neat, tidy explanation for the aching emptiness it leaves behind. I hate the saying time heals all wounds, because in the case of grief, that's nothing more than a comforting illusion. Time may dull the edges, but the wound remains. There is no finish line, no moment when grief releases its grip on you, and in fact it never ends. It lingers, taking on new forms, looping back upon itself, quietly morphing into more sorrow and more longing for the ones that you've lost. The hardest part isn't necessarily feeling it, it's living with it. It's learning to coexist with the weight of grief, to breathe through the suffocation and the infinite nature of loss. It goes on and on and on until you are no more.

Diandra F. Wing:

And the thing that I found to be striking about writing this book was it just felt like a long journal entry to me. It felt like I just wanted to tell it, to tell the story of the red bird, and the reason why I wrote it was to feel better and all it did. And the reason why I wrote it was to feel better and all it did it did the opposite. It made me feel better. But in the end, in the end, if you're taking a look at it and taking a step back as someone who's been through something traumatic, you can appreciate it for what it is. It is just a love letter to my mom, to my aunt, and that's why I wrote it. I really did, yeah.

Ebony Fleming:

I love that and I love the way you talk about healing, because I feel like sometimes we often get the question when someone goes through something well, how do I get over this, how do I get through this, how do I heal? I feel like the answer is we never heal.

Diandra F. Wing:

We're always healing.

Ebony Fleming:

We're always going to remember. It's always going to be there.

Diandra F. Wing:

Yeah, it's like a living and breathing document Like you add to it, you take away from it, but it always will be there, it will stick with you, it sticks to your bones. And my mom's death rocked me in such a ways because I've never been apart from her, from the moment that I was a baby to the very moment that she took her last breath. She was the constant in my life, she was everything to me, and I know a lot of people kind of assign well, she's your mom. Of course, you feel a type of no, no, no, no, no. Yeah, she was special and I just want the world to know that she was special and that she will always hold a place in my heart, always. It'll always be void because she's not there.

Ebony Fleming:

Let's talk about that a little bit more, because I know yesterday when we chatted, you shared some beautiful, beautiful things about your mom. I want to just know more about just what your relationship was with both your aunt, your aunt Sean, because learning about her and just how much you loved her in the book, I also was just like, oh man, that's just, that's a lot to go through, but what was your relationship with both your aunt Sean and with your mom before they passed?

Diandra F. Wing:

You know my aunt Sean. She was a free spirit and I mentioned that in the book. She just was destined for greatness, like she just she took up space. You know what I mean? She was a larger than life personality. I just loved her zest for life and't know what to do with the pain, and she was caretaking for him before he passed. He had Parkinson's and had been put on hospice at one point and then subsequently, a couple of weeks after he got placed on hospice, he ended up passing away.

Diandra F. Wing:

And I remember going to the funeral, me and my husband and sister and my mom and brother and my other sister. They all, like we had a caravan, we all drove to Georgia. We made the 17 hour drive because it was so sudden. Yeah, nobody was trying to fool with trying to like find flights and stuff. We were just like let's just book it, let's get on, like, let's get a rental car and let's drive the distance. So we did.

Diandra F. Wing:

And you know my aunt Sean as his caretaker my, my, my, my papa. She really took one on the chin. Like she left her life in North Carolina, moved back to Albany, georgia, where he lived, and just became his full-time caregiver and after he passed, she said you know what? I'm leaving and I'm going and I'm going to do great things and I'm going to Gambia and I'm going to do all this and do all that.

Diandra F. Wing:

And of course all of us were just like, are you sure you don't know anybody there? Like is that something you really want to do? But she really, really wanted to do it. She had the kind of stick to itness kind of attitude that whenever she set her mind to do something, she did it, and then some. So she sold all of her belongings, her car, everything, and she up and moved on a one-way ticket to the Gambia, never to be seen again. And I hate that. That. That's how her story ended, because all she wanted was just a little slice of happiness in this life, and I prayed to God every single day that she saw that she finally got to experience that, and that's what gives me comfort, that's what brings me solace when I think about her departure from this earth.

Ebony Fleming:

Yeah.

Diandra F. Wing:

Wow, yeah, I know.

Ebony Fleming:

Whew, departure from this earth, yeah, wow, yeah, I know you have gone. You have gone through so much and you've talked already about the book being basically your, the journal that you needed, uh, your way to cope. Can you talk about any other ways that helped you during those moments, especially with the writing of the book? Like you said, you got to the end and it wasn't what you expected. What helped you move through those dark moments?

Diandra F. Wing:

You know, I got to say my siblings. I've got three siblings, one twin sister, one older sister and one older brother, and we realized at the start of all this like having to plan her memorial, having to get her cremated, having to just get the program ready and just get everything ready for her we realized that really and truly we are all each other has. And a couple of weeks ago my brother died and he's six years older than me and he sent us all a text. In the group chat, the family group chat of the siblings, he said something so sweet. He just said you know what guys he was like, let's keep doing these things.

Diandra F. Wing:

To remember, mom was January 25th, so we got like together at her house, which my sister now lives in. We got together at her house and we had a happy birthday, mom sign up and we had her favorite things, which were soup she loves soup and we had salad and we had her favorite drink, the margarita, and we got her some her favorite lemon cake and we just celebrated her. We celebrated her and I just, he just said we have to keep doing that because y'all, we are, all we have, we are, we are it. You guys are my people and it was just such a sweet, sweet moment, even though it was a text. It wasn't a phone call or a group call, it just was a simple text.

Diandra F. Wing:

And I now know how and why my mom was so adamant that we had a tight relationship, that we were all close. It's because she did not have that with her family and they were excommunicated from like her and Sean were excommunicated from their other three sisters, and that's a whole other story. But yeah, I know it's close to home, I know it does for you, but what we talked about yesterday, yes, yes. So you know, it's a lot of just having to do a lot of deep introspection. That's what helped me through it. I was like, what am I feeling? Trying to do the breath work, trying to do the work of getting through this is what got me going really and truly. But I quit my job. I could not function, I could not and I was like how dare corporate America get a fucking five, sorry, five day, a five day grief, like, like, yeah that's not enough.

Diandra F. Wing:

That is not enough. Do you know, not? Do you not know? This woman was my life, for all of my life. She's the reason why I am here. Her DNA is a part of my DNA and you don't just. It's not a light switch. You can't turn that off. So I quit and I felt good about it. You know good for you.

Ebony Fleming:

yeah, honestly, because I feel like I feel like a lot of us, I mean, that is how it is right. Right, we go through, we go through things and we're expected to start just showing up again Like, yes, I think like nothing happened, like we're not still grieving, like we're not still processing, we just have to. Okay, we turn it off. But you can't turn it off. That's not.

Diandra F. Wing:

that's not a thing, no, and I just I could kick myself for not realizing how this was going to affect me, because I knew I had had a feeling that something was coming with my mom and I say that now in retrospect only because I made her, because she had recently retired from teaching, so I made her start this project with me, this book of hers, and thank God I did, because now we have this book, that with her words, that I gifted to all of my siblings and they were just like, why did you do this? How did you know? And I'm like I don't know it. Just something hit me right after my aunt had passed. I'm like we have got, we have got to to hold each other so close.

Diandra F. Wing:

And that's what I wanted to do. We started this writing project through this company called StoryWorth, and StoryWorth really, really helped me bring my mom's memories and her, her, her life to life, like it was in a book and it's forever. And it was the best project that I could have done. We were about three questions away from finishing when she passed, but I still had the book printed, put some pictures in there that she wanted me to put in there and, yeah, we did it and I was so glad to give that gift to my brother and my sisters.

Ebony Fleming:

I love that. I love that you had the opportunity Me too and to take it, because a lot of us, even now myself, I'm thinking like man. I really need to start recording a lot of these stories that my mom is telling me now, because you never know.

Diandra F. Wing:

I wish, oh my God, ebony, I wished that I had done that a lot sooner. I wish I could have had like a video capsule of her that I could just go back and laugh at, you know. But all that to say it doesn't take away from the brilliance that was my mom, even though she's no longer here. Everything that I do is for her. It's in memory of her and my Aunt, sean. Like I tend to look at each day as like an adventure now, whereas before I was just going through the motions child, just like doing whatever I had to do to just survive. But now it's all about thriving, it's all about realizing that life is what you make it. And I have this new, found, just respect and appreciation for my lungs being able to provide breath, for my heart beating just all these things, my blood pumping. I'm just so grateful to be here, yeah.

Ebony Fleming:

I love that. And let's talk about the red bird, let's talk about the cardinal, because just the symbolism of you realizing that there was this sign that showed up for you and seeing that and it just giving you hope you share some of that with our listeners.

Diandra F. Wing:

When my mom, when we were grappling with my aunt's death, she said to me she's okay. And I said well, mom, how do you know? And she was like well, you know, I was sitting out on, you know, I was just putting some stuff in the back porch or something had happened where she had gone outside and a red bird, just the Cardinal, disappeared like on, like a ledge of a tree in her backyard and we had talked about at my grandfather's funeral. When he passed, there were two cardinals in his yard and my mom said at that point oh, that's just thank, thank them, but granddaddy and and grandma, that that that's them, saying that they're together, they're happy, they're fine, yeah, and you need to live. You need to live your life in honor of me.

Diandra F. Wing:

Before, just because of me, and that I don't know, in my mind it clicked that that was going to be her way of showing up for us. And, true enough, the morning that my aunt we've got the news that she had died I'm on my way, an hour's drive. It's not even daybreak yet, it's still like dawn and the light was coming out. It was a beautiful, beautiful sunrise. And I'm driving along this back road and a freaking Cardinal flies in front of my car while I'm on my way to go console my mother about the loss of her sister. My aunt and I just knew. I was like this is such a symbol, such a symbol, and I had to assign it to just my aunt, my grandfather and now, eventually, my mom. Whenever I see them, I just know that they're looking over me, looking after me you know, covering you always, always, always.

Ebony Fleming:

Yeah, that's so beautiful. Okay, let's talk about navigating loss and grief as a Black woman.

Diandra F. Wing:

Oh, you know, you know how that goes.

Ebony Fleming:

We have to talk about it.

Diandra F. Wing:

We have to, because here's the thing we're supposed to be strong, right? Nothing is supposed to, you know, phase the 92%. Okay, Like nothing is supposed to phase us. And it's so weird because, like when my mom passed now, mind you, she's got family in Georgia the three sisters and a couple of cousins and an uncle that live out there and we have been through tons of death in our, in our family. It's a very small family. On my mom's side, my dad has like 13 brothers and sisters. Don't want to even get into that, but yeah, it just it's different, for for black people, when there's a death, we tend to want to to make it festive and it's a home going. It's not a home, you know, like it's like you're going home and you can't. For me that didn't jive Like I was just like no, someone's dead here.

Ebony Fleming:

Yeah, where's the room for the grief?

Diandra F. Wing:

Where's the room for the grief? There was none of that, but I think that deciding to leave my work, deciding to write this book, opened up so many avenues for me in terms of dealing with my grief. That's one thing that we don't do as Black people we don't talk about our feelings, we don't talk about the fact that most of us need mental health services in some kind of capacity, and I talk about it in the book. I talk about my stint in, you know, the loony bin, as it were, and I had to go through that process.

Diandra F. Wing:

My mom was all about making sure that I had a mentally sound state, like she wanted me to be okay. When I tried to kill myself at 24, going on 25, I did not know what that looked like, I just knew that I did not want to be here. And when my mom found out and all of them came to the city that I was in and they were in the ER waiting for me to get out and it, you know, I stayed in the hospital, in the ICU for five days because I had done such a number on my kidneys and my liver, because I had taken a bunch of pills and stuff, and my mom was the one who who said you're not going home. When you leave here, I'm having you admitted to this hospital because you need help, you need help. So if she hadn't told me, basically she gave me no choice.

Diandra F. Wing:

You're going and deal with it and I just such a gift because I did not know what I needed to do to get better. But she knew and my mom hadn't ever been to a therapy session her entire life. But she saw her child suffering and she was like I need to do something and I need to do it now. My dad was completely against her admitting me to this, this facility, but she was like I don't give a damn, that is my child and that's her baby. Help, she needs help. So she had power of attorney because I was single, unmarried at the time, you know 24. I'm a child and I think at one point I was still on her insurance, so I was 26. And I think at one point I was still on her insurance, so I was 26,. But she basically controlled, you know, everything, like everything, and I just I. I thank God for that, because if she hadn't been the kind of woman that was just like uh-uh, this ain't it.

Diandra F. Wing:

I would I would still be suffering mentally today, and that's the God's honest truth.

Ebony Fleming:

Yeah, the power that your mom had to in that moment, say I'm making a different choice. Even though I've never gone through it, I know that my baby, my child, needs help from somewhere else, help that I maybe can't give her, that is so powerful for her to just make that choice.

Diandra F. Wing:

Yeah, and it comes from just her knowing that I needed help that she couldn't provide, so she wanted me to get it from someplace, someplace helpful, someplace where I could be free to speak and talk about the things that were holding me back or making me feel like I should not be here. She knew it was bigger than her, and that's one thing that most Black people don't realize. They don't want to assign a mental health diagnosis for people that really probably need it, like we are bad at recognizing, when you know we, as Black folks, need that mental help.

Ebony Fleming:

So thank God for my mom at that moment.

Diandra F. Wing:

Goodness, I know, it's just amazing, it is amazing, ooh.

Ebony Fleming:

okay, I want to loop back around, because we're talking about the black community and the way that your mom showed up for you, you talking about the way that you and your siblings show up for each other, knowing that we can't do this thing called life alone. Like we, we just can't, um, and so I want you to share some ways that you think other loved ones can support someone. Maybe my listener right now, maybe you're not someone who's going through grief, but you see someone going through a dark place. Um, how, how can we let them know what ways they can support that person?

Diandra F. Wing:

Well, I'll tell you how I need people to show up for me and what my husband did for me.

Diandra F. Wing:

So he's a quiet guy, but he's got some strength behind him. He's been through a lot. He's lost a sister at a very young age he only had one, so now he lost his dad, and now his mom is getting up in age and I know that he worries about being the only one left of his immediate family. So I think that the way that he showed up for me was just to back off, give me space, let me sit with it thing, because this was the first time that I had lost not one, but two people very, very close to me and it was a lot to process. It was a lot to to kind of bring to the forefront and I didn't want to touch it. I was just like I'm just going to ignore it. I'm just going to ignore it.

Diandra F. Wing:

But the day, the night, that we got back from the town that my mom lived in cause, we drove straight from my house all the way over to her town, which is like about an hour away. Um, we drove back that night and, uh, he said, what do you need? I had taken a shower. I was sitting in bed not knowing what to do.

Diandra F. Wing:

Yeah, like what's next and I wanted to call my mom be like girl. You know you did like. That's how often we talk yeah, anything, anything that ever happened to my life be like girl.

Ebony Fleming:

You know you did like. That's how often we talk, yeah.

Diandra F. Wing:

Anything, anything that ever happened to my life. It was phone call to mom let's call mom and I so ticked off that I could not call her and tell her about my day. How dumb is that.

Ebony Fleming:

That's what I was thinking.

Diandra F. Wing:

And so he was like husband Ben goes, what do you need? And I said I need to scream, I need to scream. And he let me scream, he just let me go off the rails with it. Yeah, yeah, he just let me do me. And it was the nicest thing he could have done, it was the most human thing he could have done. Yeah, he could have been like, well, you know, I don't know quite what to do because we haven't been down this road together yet, but you know, I think that he did the right thing by just asking the question what do you need? Yeah, what can I give you, what can I do? And he just held me and rocked me until I fell asleep and was so lost and I just I felt like I was on pause, like I'm at a standstill, like just God smacked by everything, and I didn't know what to do. But I'm telling you in that moment and sometimes all we need in that moment is to hear what do you need? Yeah, to know that someone's got hear what do you need? Yeah.

Ebony Fleming:

To know that someone's got us like, no matter whatever it is.

Diandra F. Wing:

Even if you don't know what that thing is that you need, the question is more powerful than anything else. Yeah, so I mean working with him and it strengthened our relationship. Yes, and it strengthened our relationship. Yes, I began to see him as not just my husband, my lover, my friend. He was a confidant at that moment and my mom had occupied that space Really truly. She did Her and my sisters confidants, my brother confidant, but my husband, I don't know why I didn't assign confidant to him. Yeah, but ever since we have been tighter than tight and our relationship is that much stronger forward, and I just thank my mom for that. I gotta take, I gotta give her, you know, props for that because it was because of her, it's because of her, but it got because of her, but it got you guys there.

Diandra F. Wing:

That's yeah, yeah so beautiful, yeah, and she loved my husband. Oh my God. She thought he was the bee's niece child.

Ebony Fleming:

Oh, I love that.

Diandra F. Wing:

Yeah, well, yeah.

Ebony Fleming:

You got mama's approval. Like, you're in a good place.

Diandra F. Wing:

Yeah, they would talk about like everything from like literature to poetry. And yeah, yeah, she was a lit head. She, you know, taught english most of her life and she just was it. It, oh, it totally thrilled her to talk about all things literary, like she was. Just, she was in a class by herself, she really was, she really was okay.

Ebony Fleming:

So I want, I want to wind us down. Wind it down. You've given us some, yes, You've given us. You've given us, you've given us so much DeAndra, Like just, I know my listeners right now are just like yes, I needed, I needed to hear that. I want to. First, if you could share, because we're on the Thrive Like a Mother podcast All right great.

Ebony Fleming:

I'm so passionate about really giving my listeners the tools and resources that they need to thrive. You've already talked about it we don't want to just go through life day by day. We want to live and truly, truly show up and thrive. So what are some daily practices or habits that you picked up that help you continue to really cultivate a healthy mindset. What are some of those things that you can share?

Diandra F. Wing:

Well, I make myself write every day. I don't care if it's just lyrics to a song.

Diandra F. Wing:

I have to put pen to paper in some capacity every day, and I don't care if it's just in my journal, like I said, writing down like a song I like or writing poetry, whatever the case may be. Center yourself, find something you like, and for me that happens just to be writing and reading, and that's what I do. But I cannot think of a time where I needed outside influences to make me feel better. But when you're going through grief, take whatever you can. Take whatever you can, whether that be laughing at a movie, talking on the phone with your bestie, I don't care what it is. Go to a wine bar, sit and talk with someone. Go to a bookstore, read a book and sit with yourself.

Diandra F. Wing:

These are things that I like to do in order to center myself. And it's weird because before my mom died, I did not actively think about things to occupy my mind. And it's weird. Grief will do that to you. Grief will make you want to get your mind off of it. But what I find is that when I do these activities, it brings it to the forefront and then you sit with it and then you're able to move on. Have your moment of silence, have your moment of grief, sit with it and then move on to the next.

Ebony Fleming:

Oh, I love that. I love just. A lot of my journey has been sitting with myself in the quiet and processing, really getting curious about any emotions that come through, because they're not always going to be happy butterflies. Sometimes they are going to be tough and we do have to sit with that and understand. What does this mean for me? How do I continue to move through this?

Diandra F. Wing:

I didn't think I'd be able to Ebony. I really thought that I would crack up and go back to the loony bin. I really thought that. But what propelled me forward? Because I'm a type A personality I go, go, go. So when she died that next day, I was like, okay, y'all, let's go to the funeral home, let's do this. And my brother and sisters are like already and I'm like we're not sitting around this shit, we have to get to it.

Diandra F. Wing:

Mom would not want us to belabor the point. She would want us to wallow in this. So let's get down to brass tacks and let's create this memorial for our mom and do her proud. So I ended up eulogizing her and it was such a gift, such a pleasure to do that for her. I felt like she was like she channeled. I channeled her or she channeled me, I don't know who channeled who, but the point is I hope that my, my eulogy provided people with a good broad look at who Sandra Kay Davis Ford was. She was an amazing woman. She was an amazing teacher and an even amazing mother. Yeah, she really was.

Ebony Fleming:

Yeah, I love that and I love that we recorded today on such, yes, such a significant day. I, like I said again, I'm gonna say it again I'm I'm honored to have you here on the podcast thank you, I'm honored to like yes, speak life into our listeners yes, and I want to ask you what's next in your writing career? I want to see a peek.

Diandra F. Wing:

Okay, cool, cool, cool, cool cool. So I'm in the process of creating or writing, if you will a second edition or sequel to Redbird that talks about what it is to live in the now, after everything has happened to you that it's traumatic PTSD, it's real. But I'm just going to revisit some of the things I didn't hit home on in the first novel. The reason why it's so tiny and so short is because I wanted it to be easily digested. I wanted it to be something that didn't feel cumbersome to read. It was just like taking a glance at someone's life for just a split second, and that's what I wanted to accomplish.

Diandra F. Wing:

But this next edition will be a lot longer and I'm going to develop the people that are in this book, more so than I did with the likes of my, my aunt, sean, and my mom, and and just me. So I want to talk about a lot of things that have happened to in my life, which is a lot, but I haven't yet scratched the surface, and I think that with the second edition or the sequel, that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to scratch every single surface.

Ebony Fleming:

Yeah, I'm so excited, I cannot wait.

Diandra F. Wing:

And I start with this Every time I'm going to write something, whether it be a poem, or it's a short story or what have you I always think of the title first.

Ebony Fleming:

Isn't that crazy?

Diandra F. Wing:

So I already have a working title for the sequel, and it's going to be called the Awakening of the Bluebird. And bluebirds are not the antithesis of the redbird, but a kind of an extension of. So when you think of a red bird, you're thinking of okay, angels are near, um, I'm waiting for something positive to happen. But blue bird is actually a gift. The blue bird and sales Cause. I've been in sales for 22, 24 years, I think, um, aging myself, but that's okay.

Diandra F. Wing:

So the bluebird in sales is when if somebody tells you oh my God, how did you land that bluebird? It's a deal that you didn't even know was there, and it's an opportunity that you didn't know was there but was gifted to you in the form of a bluebird, and I just I stuck with that bluebird and I'm like this is so true. I've used this phrase my entire sales career. Let me parlay that into my writing career. And it's going to be about the gift of life, the gift that is the power of thinking, the gift of talking to each other and understanding ourselves. That's what it's going to be about, and I cannot wait to finish this book. I mean, it's going to be so cathartic because it's going to talk about how I am the D'Andra Ford wing of today versus last year when my mom died yes, oh gosh, I am excited and I told you as soon as you said, blue, wake it.

Ebony Fleming:

First of all, awakening of the bluebird. I got chills, I'm like, and I'm wearing long sleeves, y'all. So, oh gosh, just thank you thank you so much. Well, oh, my god, you are where. Where can our listeners, where can they first of all find your book and where can they continue to just follow along your journey and get ready for the sequel?

Diandra F. Wing:

yes, so, um, you can purchase the book red bird by deandre portland, me um, on amazoncom or barnesandnoblecom or book peoplecom, or my books by a site, so it's booksby slash, deandra, hyphen board, hyphen wing, and that gives me, gives you an author biography, gives you everything that I've written, and it's. It's a really cool site to visit if you're, if you're really a reader, like a lot of us are.

Ebony Fleming:

Yes, and I'll be sure, I'll make sure to keep all of these links in the show notes too, so people can, just they can find you.

Diandra F. Wing:

Yes, ma'am, I love that Ebony. You are just a treat, thank you.

Ebony Fleming:

Thank you, thank you, thank you to you for just being here, of course.

Diandra F. Wing:

It's such a pleasure it really is, and talking to you on this day, the one year anniversary of my mom's death, is such a blessing, because I didn't know how I was going to get through the day. I didn't, and having something to look forward to such as this podcast really, really helped me today. So, thank you, thank you, you're welcome From the bottom of my heart.

Ebony Fleming:

Yes, thank you so much for listening love. If anything in today's episode resonated with you, share it with your bestie, or share it on social media and tag me so we can chat about it, as always, sending you light and love, and remember you are worthy, you are enough and you deserve to thrive.

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Ebony Fleming

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