How do you review a book told by a grieving mom who's lost her only son? To a freak accident. A drowning when he was only 12 years old. How can you even be impartial? You really can't. Nobody can imagine the pain of the death of a child, especially when it comes out of the blue.
To be honest, when I got the email offering me the opportunity to review Anna Whiston-Donaldson's book Rare Bird, I hesitated. I wasn't sure I could bear reading her story. What saved me was listening to and watching a video online of her talking. She's survived, but some days it probably feels otherwise. I was so grateful to see her smile. She can still conjure up a happy expression. "Living and partly living" as it's quoted in TS Eliot's Murder in the Cathedral. Seems apt.
A few years ago, on a rainy late afternoon Anna told her two children to go out and play in the rain. As the book states, only one came home. Her son drowned in a creek that had suddenly overflowed behind a neighbor's house. The book is the story of a family's tragedy that fully demonstrated God's tender hand.
Could someone read this who was freshly grieving? Not sure, but I found it a comfort nonetheless.
(i received this book free to review from waterbrook/multnomah)
