Travels and Tribulations (ePub)

In the spring of 2020, Tyrel Nelson lost his mother. And he lost his job in the summer. Isolated by the pandemic and hamstrung by agony, he felt forgotten by the world as it marched on. Unhappy, uneasy, and unemployed, he began picking himself up by putting down his thoughts on a yellow legal pad.

Battling through his bereavement on paper proved to be cathartic. But he needed more - a writing project he could sink his grief into. So he sorted through many of the narratives he had composed over the last dozen years. Reflecting and reexamining his existence, Tyrel brainstormed what to do with the pieces which pulled at him the most. A compilation describing significant individuals, places, and moments during the past decade-plus started to take shape.

Travels and Tribulations is an emotional and chronological collection of vignettes, which commences in 2008 and concludes in 2020. While readers follow him on excursions in North, Central, and South America, they also accompany Nelson to the peaks and valleys of his personal life. Profoundly impacted by the deaths of both his parents, the author guides the audience through his anguish, depicting reminiscences and regrets as he openly tries to make sense of everything.

"In his latest book of short stories, Tyrel Nelson immerses you in his peripatetic world, transporting you to old haunts and sharing his latest meditations. Through Tyrel's personal and spiritual meanderings you become fully invested in people from all walks of life. You appreciate Doña Viky treating you like family, imagining her sending an unmentioned smile your way. You seek escape in a sweaty adventure with eager explorers wanting to lend a helping hand. You sit by his mother's bedside each day, as she grows weaker. These stories build upon each other and draw you into transformative relationships that linger-from bittersweet moments of tearful overseas goodbyes to heartbreaking devastation at the loss of two parents. With intimate simplicity and a playful tone, the writing style invites you to observe the narrator gradually coming to terms with regret and loss but ultimately finding inspiration and meaning in both his past and present."-Andra Bosneag