Joey Madia, New Mystics Reviews

  (Los Angeles: Precocity Press, 2023). ISBN: 979-8-9873501-6-4. Over the past two decades, I have reviewed eight books written by female authors sharing their process of grief and their inspiring journey to hope. In most of these stories, their loss is that of a teenage child. As a father of three adult children, I cannot begin to fathom the depth of pain that comes with losing a child. As fate would have it, I spent the day before I began this review with two mothers who lost their teenage children—one to drowning and one to murder. In the latter case, her daughter—a star in the classroom and on the soccer field—became addicted to opioids after back surgery when she was sixteen, beginning a descent into illegal drug use in a world of ruthless people who, several years later, lured, tortured, and killed her before leaving her body by the side of the road. Their journeys are profound and vastly different. The former was lost in a haze of prescription medications until she met the s...

  (2017). ISBN: 978-0-9991237-0-6 Wise ones have said (and I count my blessings every day that I have never had to test it) that the most unnatural thing in the world is a parent outliving their child. If the loss is related to suicide or drug use (and sometimes it is all too unclear) then the burden must be even worse to bear. Anne C. Cooper lost her youngest of three sons, Todd, when he was 16. The author’s journey to healing, forgiveness, and understanding is the core of this book, which is much more than a story about the death of a child. It is a brutally honest autobiography of a mother and wife’s experience of alcoholism across multiple generations, and the damage addiction does. Useful books on grieving are hard to find, although there are many (many) titles available on the subject. My favorites are Neil Donald Walsche’s Home with God: In a Life That Never Ends (which was invaluable in helping me process the loss of a spiritual mentor, who was also my aunt), Elain...

(Coronado, CA: www.ibokag.com, 2019). IS BN 978-1-708711-31-3 By Joey Madia It has been rightly said that losing a child is the most unnatural and devastating loss a parent can bear. And, with a yearly rise in deaths from opiate addiction and suicide, more and more parents are having to shoulder this worst of all grief. Nearly six years ago, Amy Jo Giovannone lost her daughter, Sierra, in unimaginable circumstances involving a beautiful, talented young lady whom everyone loved being prescribed opiates after surgery and finding herself addicted, leading to heroine use, involvement with dangerous and abusive people, a successful stint in rehab, followed by her disappearance and murder at the age of 23. No one was ever charged. Although there are strong hypotheses, this book, and Amy’s journey, do not center around the pursuit of justice (and, sad to say, there was none). Instead, Amy has chosen to share her process and philosophy for surviving the death of her daught...

(Larson Publications, www.larsonpublications.com , 2014). ISBN: 978-1-936012-72-5 A decade ago, I lost someone very close to me. My Aunt Annette was not only a favorite family member; she was a spiritual teacher who first instilled a love of myths and stories in me. At the time of her death, her husband, a counselor and spiritual teacher in his own right, suggested that I read Neil Donald Walsch’s Home with God: In a Life That Never Ends to help me process the profound sense of loss I was feeling. In the years since, I have turned to that book many times, as I have lost other family, and some close friends and mentors. I recommended it to those I knew who were dealing with losses of their own. Elaine Mansfield’s Leaning into Love , for the reasons that I will explore in this review, is the book that I will now turn to and recommend first in times of sickness and loss. First, because it is so personal. Mansfield, who was a nutritionist and personal trainer before her h...