"Thank you for your wonderful book! Your insight into life and death, and your terrible experiences from which you have learned patience and understanding, will help us all to become better people."-Paula Bjornn, Registered Nurse
It was dusk as my husband and I entered the small cemetery to place flowers on the three graves-Jonathan, our firstborn son who died at eight months from a rare pneumonia; Michael, our violinist son who left us at age sixteen due to pancreatic cancer; and Seth, a loving son who trained hawks and suffered blindness and neurodegeneration after thirty years of immunodeficiency. As the sun set with crimson colors. I placed bright summer flowers on each grave. 'Help me to do what I should do with my life, ' I said to my sons. It was clear what my path should be. I could not let their lives be lost in vain! I should write stories of struggle, love, and faith. "They are doing work now in heavenly spheres, and I must do mine while I still have time!" I said to myself. It all seemed so clear.
This powerful memoir describing Colleen Openshaw's frequent encounters with illness and death will convey important insights when we experience these unwanted sorrows in our own lives. Losing her parents to cancer and old age, a sister in a car accident, her husband to organ failure and Alzheimer's, as well as her three precious sons to hyper-IgM Syndrome-has given Colleen unusual understanding in facing end-of-life issues. Relying on her faith in God as well as her own grit and determination, her experience can give us a unique comprehension of how to confront these inevitable trials common to all mankind.