EVE's STORY

BEHIND THE SCENES

‘Build it and they will come.’ – Field of Dreams  

I never cared much for baseball, but the strength and power of Kevin Costner’s line in Field of Dreams flourished in my mind until I had accomplished two long held aspirations in my own life. In 1997 I started writing and publishing fast paced literary non-fiction books with current social themes. In my other, vastly different line of work, I’d grown tired of working in a medical system that offered patients only the standard one-size-fits-all type of health care. In 2001 I co-founded, with a medical partner, an integrative medicine clinic that provided the community with what I believed was the best of both worlds: both conventional and complementary medicine. Once created, ‘they’ came in droves: my first book was a best seller, and our clinic was crowded with satisfied patients. I’d always kept my two lines of work separate ─ until 2003 when they collided and combusted into a controversial fireball that threatened to engulf the entire field of dreams, which had become a pleasant reality for so many.  

Only the passing years have revealed that this book was pre-destined on the day that 11-year-old Sarah came to the clinic.  For the final 17 months of her life, Sarah allowed me entry into her simple but powerful world where right was right and wrong was to be resisted at all cost. If few adults had the moral barometer of this young girl, then fewer still would have the courage to survive her ordeal of being pitted against the powers-that-be. Yet her life was innocently joyful, painfully short, rich in meaning and heavy with purpose from the very beginning.  Her simple wisdom, even under the hellish conditions she was forced to endure, became the stuff that books are written about. However, no story had ever posed such serious obstacles to its publication, including a court gag order that promised a jail term to any writer who wrote about Sarah. From the beginning, dark forces seemed intent on preventing the story from seeing daylight.  While Sarah was still alive, many who tried to help her or defend her beleaguered family soon found they were collateral damage and forced to take up their own fight for survival.  Even today, after Sarah’s death, several individuals and institutions would rather not have this story told.  

Sarah herself sealed my fate when she chose me to convey her message. My first step was to write an article about her plight, despite the court order. This landed me in court, but at least for a while it relieved the intolerable conditions that were imposed on Sarah and her family.  

 Sarah’s tragic death in 2004 offered no closure. It only intensified her memory and elevated her life’s message to the legendary quality that demanded to be told.Two years later, with her parents’ blessings, I became Sarah’s reluctant biographer, a logical choice, since I was already a seasoned writer and had been involved with her health care. I suspected that the Pied Piper would have to be paid for revealing the almost unspeakable truth of what had really happened to Sarah.  

 Seven years later the manuscript was almost complete but the ruthless Piper was still demanding payment in flesh with compounding interest. The entire episode had tied me up in court for two years and cost me a small fortune. The clinic, which represented both my income and my life’s work, was closed by the powers-that-be. The stress destroyed my marriage and seriously damaged my health. Against the tide of ruinous losses, and despite being denied support and literary grants, I doggedly continued writing the book─ until the four years of full time writing had finally cost me my house and remaining assets. Half of this book was written from bed during a bout of debilitating illness that lasted most of 2008. The monumental efforts needed to complete this work, which often drove me beyond the brink of my own endurance, deserves telling in a separate book.  

 By early 2010 I’d finally finished the manuscript, but then no major Australian publisher would take the time to read it. The constant tribulations had even flat-lined my small publishing house to the point where financing my own print run was out of the question. After all roads led to nowhere, my son and daughter-in-law offered me the funds to print the first 500 copies of Sarah’s Last Wish─ and the rest, as they say, is history.  

Victor Hugo once said that 'enemies are the cloud around everything that shines'. He also said ‘There is nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come’. Twelve months after Sarah’s Last Wish was published it became a best seller.Like Sarah, the book could not be silenced. Week after week it romps and dances about with the best of them in the top ten best sellers list while spreading Sarah’s message.

Thank you to all those who loved and trusted me and who helped make Sarah’s Last Wish a reality.  

Eve Hillary                                                                        

Sydney, Australia

August 2011