Today, author Augie Hicks tells of an unusual woman she knew, and how that woman became the inspiration for a book, Laid Hard & Fast, Imelda’s Story.  I think you’ll find it interesting.  Augie has

As an ongoing, lifetime student, I have always enjoyed talking to people and learning about their lives. Many people have come in and out of my life, but none as delightful as Emma. I first saw Emma from a distance, posing Tai Chi movements on the grass outside of her apartment. I wondered who’s this amazing person. Each movement of her hands was intentional, as well as each movement of her feet. Her face was set as though thoughts were deep within her head and nothing else matter around her. At the age of seventy-five she was beautiful. Her skin was radiant. Her body looked as though it could have been a thirty-something. Wearing white shorts, her hair cropped short, she was snappy.

As a minimalist, Emma didn’t believe in possessing more than she needed. She didn’t tolerate any nonsense or anyone touching her plants outside of her apartment. She was kind at heart to those she liked. She appreciated friends. But if you were not accepted by Emma then you were considered an interloper. She believed in good nutrition and only purchased groceries from Whole Foods Markets or Trader’s Joes, at least once a week.

Emma grew up and lived a life of tragedy. She took care of her ailing husband who was seventeen years older than her. He was not a kind man and she did not allow him to step a foot into her apartment. Yet every day for fifteen years she drove twenty-five miles to visit him in a nursing home. She never missed a day making sure her husband’s needs were taken care of while she was not there. Emma had two children with her husband, a son and a daughter.

Emma’s husband was a mean and very shrewd man who married Emma when she was given to him by her grandmother. Emma was fifteen years of age and he was thirty-three years of age. They married in Mexico. Emma’s mother died while in childbirth, she was not sure about her biological father. She was never sure if the bag of beans sitting on the counter in her grandmother’s kitchen was part of the exchange, part of her dowry, or what. Her life was hard.

When her husband brought her and their children to the United States, she by chance heard of the Peace Corps and the work they were doing outside of the country. Emma ran away from her husband. It never occurred to her that she was also abandoning her children. She volunteered for two years in the Corp outside of the United States in Kenya. This was a good life for her. She enjoyed working with the children and the mothers who had aids. Forced to write letters home, Emma’s only correspondence was with her grandmother.

Dragged back to America, kicking and cursing, Emma had a different taste of life. Raising her children under stress and duress of physical abuse she heard about a program at Mount San Antonio Junior College, located in Walnut, California. She loved education and obtained dual AA degrees. With help from counselors, she was accepted into the University of La Verne, this is where she earned her bachelor’s and master’s degree in Anthropology. Emma’s husband allowed her to attend college as long as she collected a check from financial aid and gave him the money. Yet the heartache of abuse she’d known as a child from her grandmother and throughout her married life weighed heavily in her mind. Even though she was hard as nails (today)—this is where her story begins as fiction to where she has returned to the love of giving. That’s back to the Peace Corp in Bangladesh. Emma is my Imelda. Though fictionalized, however truer than not…

Leave a comment and we’ll put your name in the hat and then draw one out for a free copy of this life-inspired book.  It can also be purchased at Black Opal Books at

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