The Path to Ferndale by Susan Humphrey

by David
(Hull MA, USA)

This beautifully written and wise book details the author's younger son's passionate, though ultimately fruitless, struggle with bone cancer, and her profound grief and eventual healing after his death in 2009.

Through letters she wrote to a small group of friends and family over a 10-year period, the reader learns how the author lived through deepest sorrow and black despair, and eventually embraced life, with gratitude, once again.

The book is filled with great tenderness, beauty, wisdom, and HOPE. Speaking as a spiritual freethinker, I like that she doesn't try to convince readers that capital-G God is the exclusive source of true comfort for the grief-stricken. Instead, she non-judgmentally invites readers to find comfort and faith in a higher power wherever they choose, whether it be in religion, nature, other people, dogs, the Universe, or something else. (There are many ways up the mountain, as the saying goes.)

She deftly mixes humor with heartbreak, silliness with seriousness, fear with faith, gratitude with grief, and loss with love. An inspirational book for anyone, grieving or not, searching for faith in today's troubled world. It also includes extended meditations on the beauty of nature, especially that found in her Vermont gardens.

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Feb 17, 2021

Thank you for your recommendation
by: Lesley

Thank you for telling us about this book. It sounds very healing and inspiring.

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