Abstract
With exceptional candidness and depth of raw emotion, Alvin Johnson, an Episcopal priest, provides those who dare to enter his journey with a stark antithesis to the prevailing culture surrounding grief—that is, that the grieving one must find a way through and get past the grief during or after an acceptable (to others) period. Thirty years after the death from leukemia of his seven-year-old son, Nicholas, Johnson finds a combination of faith, courage, hope, and words to share the path that he, his family, friends, and community walked through Nicholas’ life, and continue to walk in the years after his death.
Anyone walking that path of grief and longing struggling with culturally discouraged honesty may find this book paved with difficultly and hopeful encouragement. Johnson’s memoir may be especially helpful to those who have, like him, experienced the death of a child. Even more so, clergy who have experienced the death of a child and the accompanying struggles with faith, God, and the church may relate and gain strength from this book.
Johnson paints a stark picture of walking the path of grief, a pathway lined with doors; those who walk that path enter from different doors. While each room (experience with death) differs, people can and do emerge along the same path and can choose to walk together or separated from others. Johnson’s own story includes his experiences of walking this path with his wife, family, congregation, and friends—some more helpful than others, of course. The author gives readers a view of the many changes that happen when a child dies. In his own life, how his faith, relationship with God, and relationship with the church changed along with how his marriage and family life changed and evolved. Systematic theology class in seminary lined up tenets neatly only to be demolished by the stark realities of the illness and d eath of his child.
The author’s experiences suggest, “Few churches are equipped with any sort of intentional ministry to the bereaved, believing that people will find their own way. There seems to be unawareness of the loneliness accompanying the journey” (p. 80).
The book’s title emerges from Johnson’s struggles with lifelong grief and movement toward a state of feeling free to grieve and set that grief free in the midst of earthly community, faith, and God’s love and light.
Caught in the grief from the death of my child is prison enough. I don’t need culture, in any form, to place restraints on my experience. As long as anyone or any organization puts forth a formulaic path to recovery and healing those who agree with such a plan will find themselves in a prison of recovery. (p. 77)
Some readers may be experiencing grief after the death of a child or other loved ones. Others may desire to walk that pathway with grieving friends, and some may find themselves suddenly on a grief-filled Emmaus Road beside a friend or family member. These readers may gain strength and freedom from reading with open minds and hearts the often painful, raw, honesty revealed in the pages of this memoir.