Lewis Tagliaferre
This book is a memoir of one Christian man’s struggle to survive the ultimate form of suffering when he realized it was God causing his suffering. After growing beyond the lifestyle of his immigrant parents, his life collapsed watching his wife die untimely at age fifty-two. Death of a spouse is rated the highest stressor on the Holmes-Rahe scale of stress, a primary predictor of pending illness related to losses and other life changes. Although the resulting grief is considered to be a normal human reaction, it can be life-threatening. Unless you have watched your spouse die, it is almost impossible to explain in words how it makes you feel. When the traditional faith of his family provided no comfort, he searched for a new belief that could make life worth living when it seemed there was no reason to go on. Although he was a deacon and Sunday school teacher, this widower had to reach beyond the church to find a pathway through depression to serenity and contentment when his traditional life was destroyed. In our culture, widowers are expected to absorb their loss and to go on with life as though nothing happened. He wants readers to know that something great happened and how it changed his life. His struggle to live when life was not worth living led him through career challenges, loves and losses on the way to discovery of a new belief system that accommodates the world as it is. His journey to recovery may be unusual and his conclusion may be shocking, but it could help other widowers to know there can be resurrection from hell.
