When Love Calls: A Memoir of Great Devotion

By Norm Supancheck

"She led me to a rock overlooking the ocean. All was quiet except for the pounding of the surf below us. The moon was bright and shining, and it left a trail of light on the ocean in front of us that glimmered and danced on the water. Shayla put her arm around my shoulders. My heart started to dance like the light on the water."

In 1966 in Southern California, twenty-somethings Norm Supancheck and Shayla Strohmeyer make a heartbreaking decision not to get married. Only one problem: they are deeply, acutely, irrevocably in love.

Their lives will intersect over the years in uncanny ways. Shayla will give her heart to another man and marry him instead. Norm, who becomes a priest, will perform their wedding ceremony and bless their union. Shayla and her husband will raise a family. Norm will baptize their children. Shayla and her husband will move three states away. Norm will visit often and become an integral part of the family’s life.

As the years advance, the dark finger of mortality will beckon to them both, and Shayla’s and Norm’s lives will parallel each other in one final, poignant and lasting way.

Like a Nicholas Sparks novel, this book is powerful, lyrical, and beautifully surprising. It is for anyone who’s ever sensed that the call to love extends beyond anticipatable boundaries. It’s a story about being pulled between two worlds, about loving deeply and truly, but expressing that love in ways not first imagined.

Father Norm Supancheck’s touching and monumental memoir will comfort and challenge you. More than that, this incredible true story will reinforce everything you’ve ever believed about the unshakable passion and devotion of a lifelong love.

Ultimately, like true love itself, this story will never let you go.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bird Street Books
• Release date: Feb 10, 2015
• ISBN: 9781939457349

Norm Supancheck

Norm Supancheck was born in 1942 and grew up in Long Beach, California. He’s spent his life devoted to serving God and helping people. An ordained priest for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles since 1968, Father Norm’s current assignment is chaplain at Alemany High School in Mission Hill, California, a position he has held since 2002. Fr. Norm leads various marriage enrichment programs through the Catholic Church including Retrouvaille, Marriage Encounter, and Engaged Encounter. He works with many youth training programs and is actively involved in a variety of community service organizations. Fluent in Spanish, Fr. Norm celebrates Mass in Spanish up to five times a month on El Sembrador TV Station (ESNE), which is broadcast worldwide. He holds a bachelor’s degree in philosophy from St. John Seminary and a master’s degree in applied theology from Graduate Theological Union.