When Love Calls: A Memoir of Great Devotion

by Norm Supancheck, Marcus Brotherton (With)

Overview

"She led me to a rock overlooking the ocean. All was quiet except for the pounding of the surf below us. The moon was bright and shining, and it left a trail of light on the ocean in front of us that glimmered and danced on the water. Shayla put her arm around my shoulders. My heart started to dance like the light on the water." In 1966 Southern California, twenty-somethings Norm Supancheck and Shayla Strohmeyer make a heartbreaking decision not to get married. There’s just one problem: they are deeply, acutely, and irrevocably in love. Though they are separated, their lives will intersect over the years in uncanny ways. Shayla will give her heart to another man and marry him instead. Norm, who becomes a priest, will perform their wedding ceremony and bless their union. Shayla and her husband will raise a family. Norm will baptize their children. Shayla and her husband will move three states away. Norm will visit often and become an integral part of the family’s life. As the years advance, the dark finger of mortality will beckon to them both, and Shayla and Norm’s lives will intersect in one final, poignant and lasting way. Like a Nicholas Sparks novel, this book is powerful, lyrical, and beautifully surprising. It is for anyone who’s ever sensed that the call to love extends beyond anticipatable boundaries. It’s a story about being pulled between two worlds, about loving deeply and truly, but expressing that love in ways not first imagined. Father Norm Supancheck’s touching and monumental memoir will comfort and challenge you. More than that, this incredible true story will reinforce everything you’ve ever believed about the unshakable passion and devotion of a lifelong love. Ultimately, like true love itself, this story will never let you go.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781939457356
Publisher:	Ghost Mountain Books
Publication date:	03/10/2015
Pages:	256
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Norm Supancheck was born in 1942 and grew up in Long Beach, California. He’s spent his life devoted to serving God and helping people.

An ordained priest for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles since 1968, Father Norm’s current assignment is chaplain at Alemany High School in Mission Hill, California, a position he has held since 2002.

Fr. Norm leads various marriage enrichment programs through the Catholic Church including Retrouvaille, Marriage Encounter, and Engaged Encounter. He works with many youth training programs and is actively involved in a variety of community service organizations.

Fluent in Spanish, Fr. Norm celebrates Mass in Spanish up to five times a month on El Sembrador TV Station (ESNE), which is broadcast worldwide.

He holds a bachelor’s degree in philosophy from St. John Seminary and a master’s degree in applied theology from Graduate Theological Union.

Marcus Brotherton is a journalist and professional writer known internationally for his books and literary collaborations with high-profile public figures, humanitarians, inspirational leaders, and military personnel. He has authored or coauthored more than 25 books, including the acclaimed Feast For Thieves, the much-loved Finding Martha’s Place, and We Who Are Alive and Remain, a New York Times bestseller.

Table of Contents

Overture: How I Describe Love 1

Chapter 1 Her Favorite Car 11

Chapter 2 A Question Rises in Me 25

Chapter 3 The Road to Serving Others 39

Chapter 4 What Would We Do? 55

Chapter 5 Staring at the Sun 65

Chapter 6 What Have I Gotten Myself Into? 79

Chapter 7 When I Stopped Panicking 93

Chapter 8 Facing Death 109

Chapter 9 Light Streamed through the Window 121

Chapter 10 How the Years Slip By 135

Chapter 11 The Worst News Ever 145

Chapter 12 Where Rose Gardens Once Bloomed 159

Chapter 13 Something Important about Cars 165

Chapter 14 Limping, I Continue On 173

Chapter 15 The Last Gift 179

About the Author 185

Editorial Reviews

03/23/2015
When Supancheck was in seminary studying to become a Catholic priest, he attended a retreat and met Shayla Strohmeyer, and something quietly but irrevocably shifted inside him. As he describes in this tender memoir, she called forth a courage in him that he hasn't known before. Friendship became romance, but Supancheck sensed the impending collision with his life's calling. The couple decided not to marry and in time Strohmeyer met and married another. Their love, however, is a deep and unusual bond that persists through these changes. As an ordained priest, he performs her wedding and baptizes her daughters; she encourages him as he moves from parish to parish. The two eventually develop cancer, their diagnoses coming within two years of each other. Supancheck's story of a love that transcends calling and circumstance is beautiful in its gentle and enduring devotion. Yet as he describes the divergent paths their lives take, he never provides a sense of what lesson such love offers readers whose circumstances are different. A beautiful relationship that has an unconventional outcome may disappoint romantics seeking inspiration. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly