For over 25 years,DelilahRene has been using her soothing voice to console listeners across the nation, offering inspirational, helpful advice to people from all walks of life.
Her some 8 million listeners know that in the last several yearsextreme loss and heartache have hit the syndicated radio hostand mother of 13 more than once. Now, with her new bookOne Heart at a Time, she’s letting them all into her journey through the storm.
“[The book] is more about my philosophy on life — that you can change the world for good no matter what you’re going through,” she tells PEOPLE. “I was really challenged to see if I believed that because when I started writing it life could not possibly be better, and then in the midst of that process, a few chapters in, life could not possibly be worse.”
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Zack (one of her three biological children, the other 10 were adopted)suffered from depressionthat set in after he’d been injured in a car accident, went through a painful breakup and subsequently learned that he would not be graduating from high school with his class. His loss was another crushing blow to Delilah, who previously lost her 16-year-old son Sammy to complications of sickle cell anemia in 2012.
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In writing her book, “The message that I wanted to share was that no matter what you’re going through, no matter what your situation is in life, no matter what your economic situation or your age — you can impact the world for good using that gifts and the talent and the skills that you have,” she says. “I guess I was challenged to dig deep and say, ‘Is that really true?’ And it is true — it is really true.”
When it comes to her late sons, “I want both Zack and Sammy’s lives to be a legacy of the love and the goodness that they shared and of their willingness to give of themselves to others,” she adds. “There’s a lot of stories in the book about both of their unique ways of blessing, helping and nurturing others.”
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And with a “very big family” and strong support system, Delilah continues to celebrate the lives of Zack and Sammy every day.“The boys are talked about pretty much as if they’re just in the other room instead of in an eternity,” she says about how the family keeps their memory alive. “From the little kids to my adult children, we all talk and reference Zack and Sammy as if they’re in the other room, not as if they’re away from us.”
Delilah, 58, who’s been throughthree painful divorcesshe explores in the book, has also found comfort in her “very, very supportive” fourthhusband Paul Warner— whom she wed in 2012. Although the couple has a non-traditional living situation, living six and a half hours apart due to their careers, Delilah says “it works for us.”
“My husband has five children of his own that are grown and most of them are married and have their own lives and careers, so he was kind of done raising children when we met — although, he loves my children very much and is extremely supportive,” she says. “I’ve been a single parent for many years, raising my children, and that’s one of my passions. And though that’s not necessarilyhispassion, he would never stop me or dissuade me.”
“I’m the parent that loves to parent, loves to go to school activities, loves to go to soccer games, loves to make costumes,” she continues.
Between coping with death,struggles with her own parents and failed marriages, Delilah says its moments like those that have led her to become “better, stronger and more compassionate.”
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“I think that personal and spiritual growth doesn’t usually come through good times, but it usually comes through the trial and tribulations,” she says. “We need to stop looking at pain as something to avoid at all costs and instead embrace those struggles and realize it’s through those struggles that our personalities, our consciousness, our hearts are enlarged and our capacity to love is expanded.”
One Heart at a Timeis out nationwide.
If you or someone you know is showing warning signs of suicide, consider contacting theNational Suicide Prevention Lifelineat 800-273-TALK, texting theCrisis Text Lineat 741741 orseeking help from a professional.
source: people.com
