Losing Malcolm: A Mother's Journey Through Grief

Losing Malcolm is a moving, first-hand account of unbearable loss and grief-and the growth that ultimately results from it. Carol Henderson struggles with the alienation that naturally occurs following such tragedies (only women who have lost babies can truly understand the experience), exacerbated by her temperamental/ familial or, as she describes it,"WASPy" tendency to withdraw in the face of emotional pain so as not to put anyone out. (She learns to cope this way early in life: her mother suggests the same solution to all emotional pain --- lie down and get some rest.) Ultimately, the author discovers real answers that lead to healing: find a community of women that has experienced the same loss, seek out a loving therapist who absolutely understands what she is going through, and, somehow, garner the courage to have another child. Through her painful odyssey, Henderson finds meaning and redemption in Malcolm's short life. This is a helpful book for both professional healers and family and friends of bereaved parents.

This is a beautiful book about a very difficult subject, grief. I finished the book within 24 hours of having bought it. It is not just about the death of a child but about how we are transformed by such tragedies. Henderson's life is deepened and matured by this profound experience and reading her book I felt I had changed too.

Normally I would NEVER read a book that cuts so close to the bone as this one - but my wife LOVED it and I thought the change would so me good. I was a soggy mess by the time I finished it - people were trying to sit far away from me on the plane - but I emerged, I would say, ACTUALLY A BETTER PERSON for having read it. Brava, Carol. My heart goes out to you.

Be prepared to read this beautifully written book in one seating. The narrative flows like a novel, yet Henderson's saddness and grieving are very real. This is not written just for parents - but would be instructive for anyone who is dealing with parental loss - personally or professionally. It is a must read.

LOSING MALCOLM has as its subtitle, `A Mother's Journey Through Grief,' and that is what it is: a journey. Although this memoir deals with that most wrenching of catastrophe's, the death of a child, both in structure and in spirit it walks away from the event. By this I do not mean that the lost child is forgotten, far from it, but the story shows how healthy grieving can heal the human soul. Rather than leading up to and finishing with the death of six week old Malcolm, Henderson gives us his death up front, no punches pulled. But what comes after is what her book is all about. Although she honestly presents the shock and agony of her bereavement, she does not ask for sympathy or pity, but leads the reader step by step along the path she took back to normality and peace. Along that path she experienced mindless numbness, hysteria, frustration, resentment of other women with their children, fear of her own body, and rage at people who dismissed her loss, saying Malcolm was "only a baby," suggesting she replace him with another, as though babies are, like money, fungible. Even when she became pregnant for the second time, she felt that the new baby was "floating in a womb of tears." And yet she had the wisdom to embrace all these reactions as natural aspects of the grieving process. Gradually, we see her drawing the scattered pieces of herself together, helped by simple things like the companionship of dogs, the soothing power of poetry, the friendship of a group of older women who "had seen it all," and, at last, the healing ritual of entrusting Malcolm's ashes to the ocean. This is a brave and most affecting book which shows the workings of the human heart and how it deals with tragedy. It is a wise and simple guide to how to walk through grief and come safely out the other side.