Nancy Sharp. Photo by Ellen Jaskol.

Some may believe things happen in life for a reason, but Lowry resident Nancy Sharp rejects the “voodoo thinking.” Rather than sitting and waiting for life to work out, Sharp says she has made bold decisions that led her to happiness—the focus of her best-selling book, Both Sides Now. The memoir is a series of vignettes that aim to inspire anyone who wants to move his or her life in bolder directions, not just those who have lost someone.

The book hinges on the day in 2001 when Sharp gave birth to her twins and also learned that afternoon her husband’s brain cancer had come back after 18 years in remission. After two years, her husband died.
While she could have made the safe decision to stay in her New York home, she knew she needed a fresh start far from ghosts of her past and the pain of losing her husband. “I think the best way to memorialize a loved one is to choose life,” she says.

So in 2006, with only her 5-year-old twins, she left New York and moved to Denver.

“When life shakes you, like it did me, there is really something very powerful about looking to the mountains as providing that sense of perspective and that sense of sturdiness and permanence I felt I needed.”

Seven months after moving, she read in the Rocky Mountain News about Steve Saunders, anchor for 7 News and one of 5280 magazine’s most eligible bachelors. She learned, like herself, Saunders had lost a spouse to cancer and was single-parenting two children. She decided to reach out to him as a friend.

After a few weeks with no response, the same courage that led her to Denver told her to send the email again. This time he apologetically responded within a half hour. Unexpectedly, romance blossomed, and the two married in 2008 at Cheesman Park.

While some may look at Sharp’s life and say it has fallen into place by chance, she says she created her opportunities. She fiercely pursued happiness after loss and heartache. “Many people wrestle with bold decisions in career and personal passions, but everyone is capable of bold living,” she says.

Sharp is an author, writer and keynote speaker on bold living. Visit www.NancySharp.net.