Love and Loss: A Story about Life, Death and Rebirth

I was immediately struck by the authors' willingness to share her sorrow and her healing with her friends, her community and ultimately readers at large by writing this book. Loss is never easy and is something we all will deal with eventually in our life time. Trying to understand it and embrace the part of loss that allows us to grow, heal and move on with grace and compassion is a concept that Ms. Bay explores with great profoundness in her novel. Reading this book in the 21st century with the many email communication throughout the story, I thought of the irony that a technological device so recently invented was what empowered and helped a woman struggling with the death of her child in far away Tibet. This is a book that does not shy away from the sadness and the despair. And the reader is a better person for having taken the journey.

In "Love And Loss" Jane honours the truest most authentic part of herself, her soul,as she writes about the grieving process. The fact that she's allowed us to be a part of her collective world of family and friends through the exchange of e-mails is generous and makes her experience potently tangible. There is no struggle to create transformative lines or put words on paper that will hopefully have meaning. The subject matter speaks for itself and touches us in the place where we have all experienced love and loss.This profound human experience is most eloquently written by Jane as her heart is at the heart of every word.I was impressed with her strength as she continues to write even through the most painful moments and keeps us engaged in a spiritual adventure as well as sharing the self-actualization distilled from it. The book further goes on to remind us that our most fundamental connection to each other is at the heart. "Love and Loss" demonstrates through friendships composed of deep love and support our responsabilty to each other and the principles of basic kindness that unite us in our humanity. In spite of it's subject matter I felt a strange sense of jubilance as it provided me with a sense of connectedness during the holiday season when I felt alone. I would recommend this book to anyone at anytime. Ellen Heuer

"Metabolize your grief into a thing of Beauty." --Martin Prechtel In Love and Loss, Jane Bay does exactly that. After the devastating loss of her adopted Tibetan daughter, she writes her way back to health and wholeness. By doing so she offers us and the world a book of great wisdom and beauty. --Lynda Beth Unkeless Marin County, California

Love & loss grabbed not only my heart, but also my very being. If you have ever loss someone that was an integral part of your life, this book is a must read. Jane not only shares her journey about life, death and rebirth, but more important, she shared her heart and that of all her friends for us to understand a natural process in life. For the first time since my brother passed, I found a way to understand not only my own feelings about grief, but more important, a way to end my mourning and begin to celebrate his life again. Thank you Jane for opening your heart and sharing such a personal and very touching part of yours. You have giving me a great gift called closure.

The construction of the book through emails linked by her narrative is very effective. Much of the dialog, with its timeliness and spontaneity, could not have happened without email. The breaks in the flow this created, for other people's comfort and suggestions about love, and loss, was very effective for the subject of this book. For the reader, they created good opportunities for ideas to occur, and for my thoughts to veer off into the relationships between what Jane Bay endured and described as she traveled through the love-growth and grieving journeys with her daughter, and situations that all of us have experienced - - and will again. The reader is left better-armed for the future grievings that must lie in wait.