Facing the Ultimate Loss
Robert J. Marx & Susan W. Davidson
(Reviewer - Rebecca Brown)
2003 Champion Press
ISBN: 1891400991

Coping with the Death of a Child.

Explore the journey parents must face, including grief, guilt, anger, powerlessness & quavering faith, when the unimaginable happens.

It is one of the thrills in my life that people I know have written & published books. As an immigrant of less than six months back in 1966, I went to work as Secretary to Rabbi Marx, the Director of the Midwest Region of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations (UAHC). While we worked together for long hours & several years in a corporate office, with throngs of people coming & going as the Civil Rights Movement, led by Dr. King, arrived in Chicago, our private lives were just that, private. Then my path took a turn, & I headed off into the Counter Culture.

Recently I received a catalogue in which I saw a blurb for Facing the Ultimate Loss, & I remembered visiting two of my oldest, dearest friends who had survived the sudden death of their son in a random natural accident. Their grief was like nothing I'd ever encountered. While they spoke of their son's life & their pain, my first attempt at comfort was met with such hostility, I let them do all the talking.

Facing the Ultimate Loss: Coping with the Death of a Child, has given me a glimpse of what an immense hurricane this grief can be. Rabbi Marx survived the loss of his son, & Susan Wengerhoff Davidson has been a grief counselor for many years, thus they know of what they write.

After the Introduction in which the authors write of miracles & tragedies, there are 15 chapters which start in the Darkness: Can I ever accept the fact that my child is dead? Where else should one start other than in the deepest, darkest core of the nightmare. Written simply, with statements often made by the newly grief-stricken, the authors wend their way through the dungeons of despair, through the Valley of Death where comfort is far from parents' minds; where the salt of their tears has made barren their family life.

Chapter 2 stumbles into the land of the Self -- Who Am I Now? Recognizing Myself -- in some cultures parents are known by who their children are. Their names change, they become the Father of... & the Mother of... Their child is their anchor & purpose. When that child dies, who is left?

Chapter 3 How Can We Ever Say Good-Bye?: Ceremonies of Separation. What are funerals for? How does society cope with death? How do survivors survive?

Along this grief-sticken path Robert Marx & Susan Wengerhoff Davidson offer Fingerprints in Time; Do Our Children Ever Die?; Midway in the Journey; There Is Never Enough Time; Into the Dark Night: How did your child die?; Anger & Guilt, & so much more about Coping with the Death of a Child.

Facing the Ultimate Loss is a remarkably healing sojourn in the land of broken hearts & tested spirits. Where the soul of a parent howls with unremitting anguish, & where healing & some peace comes with the honoring & remembering of the gift that was our child.

Facing the Ultimate Loss: Coping with the Death of a Child is quietly powerful, ultimately healing & a book which will change your life.

Do catch my Interview with Robert J. Marx, I think you'll be glad.
(04/18/04)

Rebecca