56
September 21 – October 4, 2013
Arts
www.SanTanSun.com
Chandler author Mandy Berlin pens, shares positive prose BY MEGHAN MCCOY
After a 22-year career as a statistician scientist, Mandy Berlin decided to try her hand at another career—author. Although she penned research manuscripts in the 1990s, Berlin changed her writing style when she lost her husband, Max, to cancer on Dec. 23, 2003. “I was devastated because I missed him so much,” she explains. “Shortly after he passed, not only I, but six (other) people began having extraordinary experiences after his death.” Those experiences contributed to 71 journal entries in 2004. They were later turned into her book, “Death is Not the End: One Agnostic’s Journey on the Bumpy Road to Belief.” “I took down their stories and of course wrote down my own stories and pretty soon that filled a book,” Berlin says. In addition to the stories, the book also includes lyrics from more than 50 songs because a particular tune would be playing when an extraordinary action took place. For example, Berlin explains that when objects began flying above her dining room table, “Book of Love” by Peter Gabriel was playing in the background. “The incidents themselves helped me” with the grieving process, Berlin explains.
She also vividly remembers a Jan. 1, 2004, incident in which Max spoke to her and she saw his image. “That was the first time I ever heard him say anything,” she says about her husband, who said “pull your socks up.” He was telling her to get it together because he was her guardian angel. “Then I blacked out because I was in shock,” she says. “Death is Not the End,” a book published by Abbott Press, is expected to hit the shelves at the end of November or sometime in December. Berlin stumbled upon another book, “No Mistakes: How You Can Change Adversity into Abundance,” which was published in June, when she began studying “The Law of Attraction” in 2006. “The ‘Law of Attraction’ seemed to be the answer to my prayer,” she explains. “I was looking for something to help me through all the grieving.” She created a vision board, which included cut outs from magazines with specific messages, in 2012 with the phrase “Speak right and promote” in the top corner. That phrase was the subject line of an email she received for a class being offered. “One of the people teaching the segment of the class was a publisher,” Berlin explains. The publisher asked individuals
AUTHOR, AUTHOR: Chandler resident Mandy Berlin is one of 30 authors who contributed a story to the book “No Mistakes: How You Can Change Adversity into Abundance.” Her book, “Death is Not the End,” is slated for release later this year. Submitted photo
to submit stories of how to change adversity into abundance for the book “No Mistakes: How You Can Change Adversity into Abundance.” “I jumped on it immediately,” she says. She wrote about her then-91-year-
old mother. Berlin and one of her girlfriends traveled to Nevada on Christmas Eve 2012, so they could bring her mother home for Christmas. Unfortunately, her mother fell and broke her pelvis. Doctors would not do surgery because of her advanced age. Berlin trained her mother how to think positive. “You ignore the bad part and focus on the good and you pray because prayer sends out a frequency as well as thoughts,” she says. “My mother healed herself in 10 weeks and began walking weeks after she fell. Now she is walking with a cane.” Berlin said she not only taught her mother to use the “Law of Attraction,” but others who need assistance. “I have been doing the actual teaching part of it for the last two years,” she explains. “I tested it repeatedly and then after so many years I became a great believer of it.” Berlin lives in Chandler with her mother, who moved in with her in March. For more information about Berlin and her books visit mandymax. blogspot.com or her Facebook page at facebook.com/authormandyberlin. Meghan McCoy is the Neighbors section editor for the SanTan Sun News. She can be reached at Meghan@ santansun.com.