Review: After This: When Life Is Over Where Do We Go? by Claire Bidwell Smith

Dear Lit Loves,

Oh. My. Goodness.  I have a fantastic narrative/prescriptive book recommendation!  I liked it so much that I wrote the author and the editor.  The author hasn't gotten back to me, but she is also a full-time grief counselor so like all of us in the writing world, she's juggling a lot.  I learned from an associate editor at Avery (who is quite kind and responds supportively to potential debut authors) that the editor of this book, Denise Roy, has left Penguin Random House.  So I wrote the senior editor who took her place to thank her for PRH acquiring and publishing this book.  She didn't respond.  Oh well.  That's her loss and that speaks to a part of the reputation being built by Penguin Random House.  The associate editor that corresponds with me is a smart and lovely young editor. That does not negate the fact that After This:  When Life Is Over Where Do We Go? by Claire Bidwell Smith is a fantastic read and I highly recommend it.  Here's why:

This book wholeheartedly explores the author's exploration, following the deaths of her mom and dad, the questions that persist with many of us left behind when we lose a parent:  Where are they now?  Are they still with us?  Can they see what's going on in our lives?  Do they know how much we miss them?   These questions obviously resonated with me in a quite profound way as I just lost my dad after a twelve year intensive battle with a rare form of lymphoma.  I truly struggled with his death because I didn't think my dad should have died from pneumonia.  His newly assigned oncologist didn't recognize the symptoms, did not perform the appropriate tests, and neglected to hospitalize a high-risk cancer patient and administer the appropriate antibiotics dad required.  And the cancer center's administration, when I brought this to their attention, basically ignored me and treated me, my dad, and my family in an abrasive fashion after my questioning of their holier than thou new oncologist. 

So Ms. Claire Bidwell Smith, who also wrote The Rules of Inheritance, about her struggle with her parents' deaths, is right on the money when she finds her audience in those folks like me who struggle daily with how to proceed in life following the death of a parent.  Ms Smith like me is profoundly struck by all the attention and celebration paid to the birth of a person and how well-trained our society seems to be in regards to recoiling and shrinking away from the dying person.  No folks, let me tell you from personal experience that is when a person and their family needs people the most.    So to discover potential answers to the questions of what happened to her parents once they died and how will she proceed in life following their deaths, Ms. Smith explores the inner world of psychics, mediums, shamanism, past life regression practioners, seances, and faiths.  I will not give away here on my blog what she learns through being open to all these sources of information.  And I loved the way at the end of each chapter she writes a note to her daughters about what she wants them to know not only about life and death, but the values of their mom and what special characteristics she notices in each of her daughters that will certainly inform their life path as they mature. 

Here's what Claire Bidwell Smith and I know from our experiences with the death of a parent or a sincerely close friend:  those folks' spirit is still with us.  They are all around us.  When someone that close to you dies, you must make meaning of it and discover what it is this experience teaches you.  What values or good can you do in the world today that would make that deceased loved one proud or honor them in some way?.  For me, it's how I treat people in my everyday existence.  And it's potentially helping others through sharing my life experiences via memoir or personal narrative.  Because here's the real clincher folks:  Human life is but a small bit of our soul's experience in this world.  We're not yet done when we leave this earthly existence.  And those that have gone before of us are still here, just in another form.  We are the living proof and product of those dear loved ones we and the world have lost.  We are their legacy and there is only a temporary goodbye.  We will see them again.

Fabulous book.  Order it, swing by Barnes & Noble and buy it, or read someone else's copy.  It's a beautiful testament to both life, death, and the people we have lost who have touched our lives.

Till my next review.

Love,
Grace
(Amy)