The Homiletic & Pastoral Review has graciously published my review of Bri Edwards’s moving book, A Thousand Pounds: Finding the Strength to Live and Love Under the Weight of Unbearable Loss, which I am reproducing below. (It was Bri who first brought the story of Baby Brian to my attention this past summer.) Check out the other great reviews and articles on the HPR site — and pick up a copy of Bri’s book!
A Thousand Pounds: Finding the Strength to Live and Love Under the Weight of Unbearable Loss is a profound and beautiful book, as hope-giving as it is heart-breaking. In it, Brianne Edwards, a Catholic mother of six from South Dakota’s Black Hills, tells the story of the death of her son Lachlan to sudden infant death syndrome and the long process of learning to live anew after that loss.
The first part of the book is simply an account of Lachlan’s death. It is a hard read, told with a directness that gives the reader access to what for most of us is an unimaginable experience. For those involved in pastoral ministry such an opportunity to walk alongside Brianne and her family through the days of grief and confusion is invaluable. Alongside Brianne’s own grief we see numerous other people—relatives and friends, a few priests, funeral directors, co-workers and near strangers—come in and out of the picture, often unsure how to react, some helpful and others not. The author writes with sympathy and understanding even of those who do not quite manage to be helpful, but it is immensely valuable to see and reflect upon the different ways of being present to those experiencing such excruciating loss.
The weight of such a loss never really goes away, the book makes clear, but it can be integrated into a fully Christian life characterized by love, joy, and generosity. The second half of the book talks about how Brianne learned to grieve and to live in the years after Lachlan’s death. The author recognizes that there is no single right way to grieve and does not offer a to-do list to get over loss. Indeed, in writing, for example, about the effect of loss on marriage, she sensitively shows how a couple can experience differences in “styles” of grieving and yet grow closer through these differences. (She also points out that the claim that most marriages end in divorce after the loss of a child is not supported by the sociological data.) The book shares experience without judgment in a way that, I suspect, will be tremendously helpful to those struggling to come to terms with the loss of a loved one.
A Thousand Pounds is an extraordinarily wise book, and its greatest merit is its ability to share in an accessible way the kind of wisdom that can only be learned through struggle. Nonetheless, the book is also well-researched, with an appropriate (but not overwhelming) grounding in science, psychology, and spirituality. It is a courageous book, not only in the sense that it took courage to write, but also in the sense that its author learned to find meaning by “leaning in” to her grief, by acknowledging her love for Lachlan and the reality of her loss and also by identifying and overcoming certain obstacles that needed “pruning”—such as fear of shame, the desire to numb her feelings, and the tendency to compare suffering. Some of the book’s practical reflections provide an example of growth in virtue with a relevance beyond the experience of grief.
The presence of God and his grace is everywhere present in A Thousand Pounds, though not in a heavy-handed or always explicit way. The book does not pretend to be a theological treatise, even if its spiritual implications are profound. It is a book of practical wisdom and lived faith. The book’s final chapters recognize that learning to live after loss involves a certain amount of “wrestling with God,” as Jacob does in the book of Genesis. Yet reading A Thousand Pounds, one never has any doubt that such wrestling will bring us closer to the divine, making us stronger and more deeply loving Christians.
The book’s title refers, of course, to the weight of grief, which does not go away even as we grow to be able to bear it. But the book shows that through such painful growth we can become more fully alive with an ever-deeper longing for the eternal life with God that is the purpose of our existence. For those involved in parish ministry or anyone ministering to those who grieve, as well as for those who are themselves struggling to bear the weight of loss, A Thousand Pounds is more than worth its weight in gold.
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Tony Lusvardi, S.J. 