Guided Reading

I am an avid reader, as was Raymond, as are my boys.

It really hurt my heart when Raymond’s eyes could not focus because of the medications and he couldn’t read. He never stopped trying though. He was reading Crazy Wisdom by Wes “Scoop” Nisker at the end. He had read it in the past and asked for me to bring it to him after he was bedridden.

Throughout my life, books have come to me by chance at the perfect time. After Raymond died, my hold at the library for Fannie Flagg’s Can’t Wait to Get to Heaven came in. It was perfect. If you ever read it, check out the character named Raymond. It was like Raymond sent me a last private joke.

A few months later, I stumbled across Lolly Winston’s Good Grief, purely by accident. I had never heard of her or her books before. The widow Sophie was experiencing my life in so many ways I was truly amazed. It was as if this book leapt out at me so that I could start dealing with my grief. It was a blessing.

For the last two weeks I have been savoring Annie Freeman’s Fabulous Traveling Funeral by Kris Radish. Notice I said savoring, not reading. It does not take me two weeks to read a book. I found this book by accident while looking for a different book by another author, in a way it forced itself into my life. It was as if there was this giant hand guiding me to this book and the messages it delivers.

This book should be read by anyone that has ever suffered a loss, male or female. It had so many passages that touched me that I am ordering my own copy. I have been thinking all day about whether or not I will be able to highlight in my copy. I have decided I won’t because I can’t stand to mark in a book, but I will buy little sticky notes to mark the passages I fell in love with. I seldom ever find a book that I want to quote.

Annie Freeman’s Fabulous Traveling Funeral (“AFFTF”) has allowed me to move forward in my grief. It reinforced so many things I was thinking, and allowed me to look at my family and our way of dealing with grief.

Males should not be afraid to read this book. Yes, it looks like “chick lit” but don’t be fooled by the title or the cover. If you have suffered a loss, it will touch you, and give you a chance to heal.

I had to take pause so many times and examine the words against my feelings and thoughts. Sometimes I would only get through two pages before I would have to set the book aside and reflect upon how what I was reading pertained to my life. I would fall asleep thinking about the words I had read, only to wake up at four a.m. to read more.

From one of the entries in the funeral book for Annie Freeman “Laura Thought: Sometimes I am so pissed that you are gone I could go blind with anger and then I realize that not once, not even once, in my life has anger given me anything positive or taken me to a new place.” (“AFFTF”) I took a long pause at that passage.

Every time I get angry about Raymond’s death, cancer, being a widow, the situation I am in because Raymond is no longer by my side, I get angry a second time because I know Raymond would be disappointed in me. I am not behaving the way he asked me to behave (did I ever? – another thought for another day) after he was gone. I end up feeling bad about disappointing Raymond and not living up to his expectations of me, and that is certainly an example of nothing positive coming from anger or being taken to a new place.

The next book I am reading is just a book by an author I always read, but I am looking forward to the next book I am guided to read.