Marie Lisette Rimer grew up in Fort Lauderdale, Florida and gravitated to the New England countryside for a BA in sociology and an MA in secondary education at the University of Connecticut. She was a publicist for the Republican house and senate caucuses in the Connecticut legislature where she wrote newsletters, speeches, and press releases for state newspapers. She was an award-winning English teacher at Rectory School in Pomfret, Connecticut and began the school newspaper. She taught all aspects of newspaper production including writing, editing, and InDesign layout.
She was a charter member of the Connecticut Equine Advisory Council and fought successfully to ban the transportation of horses to slaughter in possum-belly cattle trucks. She was a licensed riding instructor and taught lessons at her farm in Pomfret, Connecticut as well as the Abington 4H Camp. She founded the Hillside Riders 4H Club, the Pomfret Hunter Pace, and the Pomfret Horse and Trail Association of which she is president.
The joy of three children and country living with her husband Robert Wood were shattered by the suicide death of her youngest son, Patrick Wood. She began a search to learn why—at first through Patrick’s life and then through the ravages of depression and her mother’s similar death. Back from Suicide is the story of life after tragedy. It is the fall from grace and the search for respite through understanding.
The author and Patrick, Tanglewood, Lenox, Massachusetts, 2001