From Nancy Baker Jacobs:Meg O'Brien died on Saturday, Dec. 6, of complications following heart surgery. She had been living in Houston, Texas, recently to be near her daughter Kaiti and granddaughter Emily. Born in New Jersey, Meg also lived in several California cities and in Washington State over the past couple of decades. She was the author of the Jessica James mystery series and numerous suspense novels. Most recently she wrote under contract for MIRA Books. Meg loved writing and always told a good story that entertained her many readers.
Here's one eerie event her daughter Amy thought mystery writers might appreciate. Twenty-four hours after Meg died, her son's cell phone rang and its readout indicated that the call was coming from Meg's cell phone. Her children later found Meg's cell phone packed inside her suitcase and, indeed, its readout indicated that it had placed that particular call at that particular time, but no one can explain just how or why. Certainly Meg would have enjoyed contemplating this kind of mystery.
Meg O'Brien leaves behind five children, four grandchildren and several great-grandchildren, along with her many friends and a host of fans, all of whom will miss her greatly.
This is not the first time I have heard of the dead calling on a cell phone. I have a friend whose brother's number showed on calls for months after he died. He also moved rocks in the garden, but that is another story.
ReplyDeleteI'm Meg's grandson, or rather I called her "Nana". There's a lot more to her death than it seems. I had been calling my mother, Robin, almost every day while Nana was in the hospital. Apparently, from what Aunt Amy and her had said, their was quite a screw up at the hospital.
ReplyDeleteOn Thanksgiving day my grandmother went into cardiac arrest, most likely from choking on her food. The nurses or whoever was supposed to be monitoring the alarms weren't around. She stayed in that position for over ten minutes. I believe they said it was actually around 15 minutes or so.
The surgery on her heart went excellent and the doctors even gave her another 20 years. If it wasn't for this screw up, which I'm personally furious about, she would have lived to write another day.
From being in cardiac arrest for such a long time it caused massive brain damage, which in turn, sealed her fate.
There's a lot I could say about Nana Meg, but for now I'll just say that I miss her a ton and I'll never forget what happened.
I hope all of her readers appreciated her as much as I did.
JD-
I am so sorry for your loss. What a terrible state of affairs. Nana Meg was a wonderful person and this seems so unfair. Thank you for posting. My sincere sympathy to you and your family.
ReplyDeleteIve just read megs home page, I feel so sad she was a brilliant writer, I've just finished another 1 of her books, and thanks to her email back to me i've manged to get some more. The world has lost a good writter and a lovely person good bye meg
ReplyDeleteYes, so very sad.
ReplyDeleteI've been living out of the country and haven't been in touch with Meg for awhile. So today I sent her a Christmas e-mail, stating that I hoped she was feeling much better. When it was returned, I went looking for her on the web. I was heartbroken to find this article! She was my favorite author, and we came to be friends for awhile before I took off for Saudi Arabia. I've been worried about her for awhile but didn't find her e-mail address till today.
ReplyDeleteMy sympathies to her family; what a lovely lady she was!
i have just read my first book by this wonderful author!i was actually searching for a way to contact her to tell her how much i enjoyed Gathering Lies and wish it would be made into a movie!
ReplyDeletei know it is very much years after her passing but I just want to say how wonderful she wrote and I cant wait to go in search of more of her books.
Shelley. Wolverhampton, England
Wow. I was Meg's publicist for a few years at Mira. I adored her. We had so many delightful conversations about so many things. She was kind, considerate and always thinking of everyone else. And we had many laughs, too.
ReplyDeleteI just started googling authors I used to work with tonight and I was just so saddened to see this.
I truly hope her family has found peace. And I hope Meg has, too.
I have a Meg O'Brien mystery.
ReplyDeleteIs she the same Meg O'Brien who wrote
"The Shattering Hero's Checkered Past"?
It was published in Washington State around the time she started her career.
My name is Amy Owens. I got a book named The Daphne Decisions from the library yesterday. I loved it. It had a quote from my favorite poem The Psalms Of Life, by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. I have never read any book that quoted that poem so I thought I would look up the author and tell her how much I enjoyed it. I'm so very sorry for the loss of this woman who not only was talented,had a depth that is surprising, but also was obviously loved deeply by family and friends. I wish I had found this book years ago so that I could have known her as well.
ReplyDelete