What was the initial reaction of your husband’s family when they read this book? Angelic Tarasio: Approving and appreciative for the way I described mother Maria’s life. Rewarding and fulfilling for mother Maria who overcame hardships in her personal life and preserved inner light, faith, morality, justice and happiness.

How difficult was writing this book, considering the emotional content and the fact that it’s based on your mother-in-law experience?
Angelic Tarasio: I was deeply involved emotionally and sometimes worked from morning to morning with short breaks in order to go through one or another part of the book that contained emotional descriptions. I could not interrupt my writing in order not to lose the connection with Mother Maria’s interpretation of the fact or event. Did I cry while writing? Yes, I did, many times. However, I must say that our mother Maria did not cry frequently. She tried to be calm when she talked about some complicated, merciless or horrible events. I was hysterical reading her journal or listening to some of her stories. I asked her more than once how she could stand the recollecting of life threatening events without crying. Mother Maria watched me with her pleasant smile and explained that she cried so much when it had happened that the Lord was probably sorry for her and one day she noticed that she was given the blessing to release her emotional overload. Otherwise I doubt she could survive.

There are some parts of the book where I was laughing or smiling, while writing. My family, including grandchildren, saw it but they were very nice and did not interfere with emotions I expressed at the moments of work. Writing the books about unusually complicated lives of a usual family was the greatest pleasure that I experienced during my rather long life. I learned for the first time that I was doing something meaningful for the Divinity, as well as for those people who were interlocked in hardships of World War II and red repressions in the former USSR.

Through the lives of my characters who lived in reality or who are still with us I wanted to inspire the readers in making the right decisions at the moments of life obscurity. I wanted people to realize that depression and suicide are not the salvation of life problems. Why should people choose darkness when our life temporarily loses the colors?

Are you satisfied with the end result of this book, do you feel you did justice to Maria’s story?
Angelic Tarasio: The book Mother Maria is the first book of the trilogy God’s Miracles. It showed us how different historical or life events affect the life of every single person. Mother Maria has clarified for us, her children, how important not to lose the connection with the Divinity during the shocking turbulences of life was. We are unable to change the history, but to overcome the hardships and survive the challenging and scary life events we can. That’s why I was quite satisfied with the end of the first book.

I do feel I did justice to her story. Mother Maria was a clever human person and she knew well her strong and weak sides. The hardships of life afflicted a weak, romantic and gentle Miss Maria. With God’s protection Maria avoided the physical or psycho-emotional destruction. The adversity made her strong and sometimes she declared that it made her too strong. Her "too strong" side induced her in making some decisions and deeds that later she was sorry about. In the second book Home-Coming I described what cost she had to pay because of her strong decision to arrive to post-war red Ukraine. At the same time, I’ve seen her human, caring, kindhearted side in such a decision. She came to save her family. How can we blame her for it?

What methods of research did you use?
Angelic Tarasio: First: mother Maria’s journal

Second: materials of different encyclopedias in order to be accurate with dates and events of the WWII, annexing of the Western Ukraine with bringing there the red regime with the dictatorship of workers and peasants.

Third: Historical books, articles, documents of Howard University about WWII

Fourth: German geographical and historical materials regarding the events of WWII

Fifth: Canadian sources of Ukrainian historical materials about the events in the Ukraine in 1939-1958

Sixth: Ukrainian sources of Ukrainian historical events of 1939-1941

What’s the most important teaching that you would like to bring forward to the reader?
Angelic Tarasio: People are God’s creations. We need to keep this bond always strong and the genuine connection with the Divinity will help us to find the feasibility of overcoming the hardships of life and prevent new life catastrophe.