Sooner Than Tomorrow: A Mother's Diary About Mental Illness, Family, and Everyday Life

2020 Nautilus Book Award Gold Medal Winner, Memoir

Welcome to my world.

My story is written in diary format. I wrote it from June 15, 2013, to June 15, 2014. What I didn’t know, as I was writing, was that I was capturing the last year of my son’s life. Pat died, unexpectedly, on July 23, 2014, in a hospital psych ward. Suddenly, my diary morphed into a more poignant record than I’d anticipated, and after he died, I discovered Pat had been making regular posts on Facebook. I decided to add his comments to my own.

I like stories where I can extrapolate from the singular to the universal—that is where I can identify with a common denominator in another person’s experience. One early reader of my diary said, “Your story is so relatable.” That’s what I hope other readers will say.

You may relate to my story if:

You have a child (children) you love more than your own life.

You have a child who suffers from serious mental illness.

You’ve lost a child—no matter what age.

You’re a member of the sandwich generation.

You treasure conversations with children—especially when they’re your grandchildren.

Your cat or your dog is in charge of your household.

Your bones are beginning to creak.

You wake up each morning with a huge hole in your heart but you know, somehow, some way, you have to get up and put one foot in front of the other.

You enjoy reading the other side of history—about ordinary people and their daily lives.

You have a sense of humor.

You’ve been thinking of leaving something for your descendants—a letter, story, diary, song, painting, or poem—but you haven’t gotten around to it. Maybe my diary will spur you on.

More notes about format:

I’ve added a Before section (Scenes from the Trenches). Going in, I want the reader to know “Yes, Houston, we really do have a problem.” I’ve divided my diary into quarters—Summer, Fall, Winter, and Spring. I introduce each with a poem—three of them are Pat’s. I end with an After section I didn’t see coming.

As I was writing, I had no idea, from day to day, what stories were unfolding. I learn, right along with the reader, what will happen next. We’re all on a journey. Thank you for going on this journey with me. Dede

Dede posted her story in two-week increments at www.soonerthantomorrow.com. The following are readers’ responses.

Beautiful words with an undertone that has caught me . . . carrying me up and down. Such a good writer that I am grateful to be with you. I can borrow some courage here.

—Janet

So happy for the readers who will discover you.

—Liz

Dede, every one of your blog posts has a portion that I love so much that I take a screenshot and read it over and over.

—Stacey

Dede, I anxiously await each posting from your blog/book. You write with such skill, and not easy when it’s so personal, but your passion sprinkled with humor are the reasons that this is successful.

—Joan L.

I’ve done this, the primal scream and the mother animal instinct. There can’t be anything more painful, not even death. My son was a normal little boy and a normal young man until schizophrenia came calling. Now I feel so shattered. I love your diary.

—J.H.D.

If only this was all contrived drama. It’s so visceral. You’re an artist.

—Heidi F.

Dede Ranahan weaves everyday events into her poignant account of her son's descent into psychosis. She takes readers, with her and her family, on a harrowing journey --there is no guidebook -- that too many of us are forced to take. Written in diary form, with entries by both mother and son, Sooner Than Tomorrow quietly exposes our nation's shameful failure to help those with serious mental illnesses. It chronicles a mother's unending love for a child and a son's struggles to be well. An important book. A loving tribute. A powerful story that tugs at the heart and leaves readers asking, "Why can't we do better?"

Pete Earley, author of CRAZY: A Father's Search Through America's Mental Health Madness

This book about psychiatric brain disease is poignant and painful, but, ultimately, a necessary read. In its well-constructed pages, you'll find a mother's diary of her wonderful son and his terrible illness. Every clinician needs a copy of this, every mental health worker, every doctor, and, certainly, every family. Sooner Than Tomorrow is as real as storytelling gets. There are no stories more honest than those of our children who live with mental illnesses. This book tells one such story beautifully.

Laura Pogliano, mother of Zac, Board Member, SARDAA (Schizophrenia and Related Disorders Alliance of America)

Among the uncountable tragedies of the mental illness sub-nation, is its near-invisibility to its host society. So-called normal people live alongside neighbors -- even friends -- whose quiet pain, mourning, terror, and desperation would affront the nation's conscience if it were better known. Dede Ranahan is among the heroic witnesses who are breaking that silence. Her memoir of the loss of her son -- passionate, eloquent, revelatory, and unspeakably brave -- brilliantly takes its place among the beacons of light and truth telling that point the way to the reclamation of our most helpless brothers and sisters, sons and daughters, mothers and fathers.

Ron Powers, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, author of No One Cares About Crazy People: The Chaos and Heartbreak of Mental Health in America

Dede Ranahan is a mom and long-time mental illness advocate. Sooner Than Tomorrow has won multiple awards including the 2019 Nautilus Book Awards - Gold for memoir. Her Nautilus Book Awards Author Spotlight Video is available at https://vimeo.com/422993030. Her new book is Tomorrow Was Yesterday - Explosive First-Person Indictments of the US Mental Health System - Mothers Across the Nation Tell It Like It Is.