Friday, June 13, 2014

What I'm Reading - Missing Christopher

Jayne Newling's account of her son Christopher's life and suicide and its effect on her and her family,  is not an easy read. As a mother how can you not put yourself in her position and imagine the devastation of losing a child in such a terrible way?


Jayne writes with such honesty, which is what makes this such a powerful read. She doesn't gloss over the grief she still continues to battle with so many years later. She fronts up to the awful questions she has asked and asked and not had answered as she has looked for clues.

A few years ago I read C.S.Lewis' book A Grief Observed, which is essentially his diary of his grief after his wife died.

Both of these offer the honesty of a person writing for themselves first. The books aren't about 'teaching' anything they are the story of a person in all their humanity as they journey through 'the valley of the shadow of death'.

I think this book would be hugely powerful for any person traveling the lonely road of grief after a suicide, or anyone who has lost a child or got stuck in the mire of grief.

I so commend Jane for her beautiful honesty as a mother and as a person and I think this book will be read with many tears by people who have felt their story is not understood and they are all alone.

Details - published June 2014 by Allen and Unwin RRP $29.99 Aus. Also available as an ebook.