Felice Boucher: The Making of a Mechanical Heart -

“Today is my birthday. It’s been coming once a year for seventy-three years now—rain or shine. Whether I’ve celebrated with others or alone, I’ve always looked forward to it. Just the fact that it followed the first day of summer felt wonderful. Winters are so long here in Maine, that the few months of summer make it extra special. As we like to say, ‘We have nine months of hard winter and three months of darned poor sledding.’”

This is how the new book from J. Felice Boucher begins. Softly. Quietly.

What follows is a manuscript that is not quite an autobiography and not quite a tell-all. Wait! That’s it.

It is a tell-all and it is for her daughters. It’s a letter that began a couple of years ago as a simple letter to her children to offer a glimpse into her life as a child. Once she began the writing process the experiences of that childhood flowed. The words continued and their meaning were even more poignant when Felice was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer and was told she only had 8-9 months to live.

“Ten months ago, I was diagnosed with stage four cancer and given eight to nine months to live without treatment. After several months of challenging chemotherapy, I’m still here after extreme fatigue, the loss of half my hair, nausea, skin rashes, blisters, and needing to use my mother’s old cane to walk around. But still, here I am, celebrating my birthday on this lovely rainy day,” she writes.

I have had the pleasure of working with Felice on publication in this magazine. She was once the cover artist for our popular “Color It Red” call-for-entry. For that issue her images were subtle but commanded attention for their brilliance. A turn of the face. A tilt forward. A delicate sensibility was incorporated into each image submitted, with nothing left to chance.

All is not lost, however because I just read that the cancer is not spreading. At this point of publication she is free from continuing treatments but taking this news one-day-at-a-time.

She is one of us so her pain is felt by so many. The Making of a Mechanical Heart is a gift to her family and to us. The writing is both gentle and fierce at the same time because she has lived a life of challenge and purpose. We are offered the opportunity to journey along with her during the ups and downs that love and lovers, friendship, motherhood, a career and a creative passion that has led Felice to an award-winning life in photography.

Shortly after I received the book I turned to the first page and was immediately hooked! It didn’t take me long to read the least few sentences, “I’m grateful I’ve had a fairly full dance card in this lifetime. I’ve taken lots of chances. Some worked out, some didn’t…but no one can say I didn’t try. I did my best with what I am intellectually, emotionally, physically, and spiritually. This wild ride created this imperfect woman. Perfection is way overrated anyway.”

I am not reviewing this book because I consider Felice a friend, I am reviewing it as an offering to all who have led challenging lives that have led us to the brink, spiritually, professionally and medically. Felice wrote the book that too many of us have said we were going to write, but haven’t. My hope is that The Making of a Mechanical Heart will serve as an opening, a permission to write those first words.

When I originally heard about the book and emailed her about doing a review of it, she didn’t think it would interest me because it was not as much about photography as it was about life. I am reviewing it not as your basic review but as an offering from one person to another that there is always hope. Always!