Mary Curran Hackett

Mary Curran Hackett is the mother of two children, Brigid Claire and Colm Francis, and is married to Greg Hackett. She received an MA in English Literature from the University of Nebraska and a BA from the University Honors Program at Catholic University in Washington, DC. Born and raised in Danbury, CT, she has traveled extensively and lived in various places throughout the U.S., but her favorite place in the world is home with her kids, husband, and her stacks of books. Like her character Colm Magee, Mary suffers various heart and neurological disorders, but thanks in part to her brother, a physician, as well as her own doctors, she now has a pacemaker and a heart that beats on its own at least most of the time.

Every book begins with a spark. What first inspired you to write Proof of Heaven?
I had collapsed several times growing up, but after I had my daughter my episodes were more severe and longer. One day while driving my daughter home from daycare, I felt sick and the next thing I knew I was in ambulance and being transported to the hospital. I totaled my car, but my daughter was safe (Thank God). The doctors took my episodes seriously now and discovered I was experiencing cardiac arrest—actual death—and put a pacemaker inside me. After my son was born, he had a single episode in my arms when I put him in the bath. It was brief, but terrifying. We never knew what happened to him (he never had any other episodes thereafter). Nevertheless, I was so afraid I would lose him without warning. So I did what I always do as a writer, I turned my feelings into words. And while doing so, it also sparked a number of other questions I was desperate to uncover myself. 

Your work explores the idea of the hereafter or where we go when we die. What truth or question were you hoping to uncover through it?
When I was a child and collapsed, I never saw “heaven” (or at least the one described to me during my Catholic upbringing). When I was older I could better articulate the sensations and experience. The world seemed black at first, a great void, but there was an odd sensation, a dreamlike quality that was hard to put words around, it was a sense of unconditional love, an omniscient presence of love that permeated through me—drawing me up and out. I could feel everyone and everything and it was all love. It was in me when I returned and remained—forever.   

What message or feeling do you hope stays with readers after they turn the final page?
I hope readers will be open to the idea that Heaven is all around, that love is heaven. It’s inside of us, it literally lives inside of us. We create our own heaven through the love we give and the love we receive. I also think that our religion can be a vehicle for heaven to be revealed to us, but it can also be a hindrance (as it was for Cathleen). I was raised Catholic but I am not practicing. My several experiences in the hereafter like the character Colm have shown me that, at the end of our lives here and the beginning of our lives “there,” no one asks you if went to church or you followed some dogma or prayed to a certain name for God. All we will know and feel is love. We’re here to do that. That is our purpose. I know a lot of people who would step over a fellow human to get to church on time. I think in some ways we’ve lost our way. Colm and Cathleen show us that there is so much to enjoy right here on earth. There is so much beauty and so much love right here, right now, in the present. 

What’s next for you—another book, a new direction, or simply rest and reflection?
Since Proof of Heaven debuted almost fifteen years ago (celebrating it’s 15th year in print) I have written a follow-up, Proof of Angels, had two pacemakers replaced, and raised my children who have left the nest. I also have written some 45 books for others as a ghostwriter. I currently ghostwrite and actively coach and teach other writers, while working on a screenplay and a new novel about an artist at the turn of the 20th century (that I have been working on for the past 5 years). Every day I am so grateful I get to write for a living. I love it. I couldn’t imagine living any other way. It’s all proof of heaven to me!

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​Website: https://www.marycurranhackett.com/
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Purchase the book here:
https://www.amazon.com/Proof-Heaven-Mary-Curran-Hackett/dp/0062079980