Behind the cover
Holding Grief traces a father and daughter’s all-around journey as they navigate the tangled intersections of love and hate, fear and bravery, hope and despair.
Naming your family role is an essential starting point toward change. I delve into the practical, some theoretical and spiritual elements challenging family relationships and how those dynamics impact who we are and who we are intended to be. My story attempts to face some of the big questions: Is it possible to change the role/identity we are born to live out? Is there really any choice in the matter? Does freedom to not live out one’s family role exist? Can we ever live into a ‘sense-of-self’ or claim the identity we were created to be?
My story of love captures this tension. It describes the power of becoming an individual both ‘separate’ and ‘connected’ to the family (system) and the importance of avoiding cut-off from them. It demonstrates the forces at play to claim health in the midst of facing both past and present trauma. The ‘Problem with Goodness’ is ever present. Can goodness be named, claimed and sustained? Finally, through a series of interlocking encounters, restorative relationship redemption is possible when trusting ‘self’ reclaims trust in others and ultimately creates new relationships forged from self-love.
This is an inspiring and courageous book written over many years demonstrating the power of healing and growth. It reveals how through time we are not limited by when love was experienced, written or told. We can be Present in Life-and-Deaths’ Intimate Moments at one point in time, modified over time, and lived into a future that is forever transcendent, beyond time, always NOW.
After all, how we play the hands we were dealt is what really matters.
