The Light That Never Dies: A Story of Hope in the Shadows of Grief

I read this book after hearing the author speak on a radio program. This was 2 months after my father died of cancer, and 2 months before my sister also died of cancer. So it was timely. I ordered the book and devoured it--it was hard to put down. The author is just so real. It's not a "how-to" book, just encouraging words from someone who's been there. I have purchased at least 8 copies of the book, and it's what I give to people in my life as they experience the death of someone close to them.

The night I read the first chapter, I couldn't sleep. I lay haunted by the sadness of three little girls enduring the death of their mother. In The Light That Never Dies, William Hendricks guides his reader from the heart-wrenching sorrow of his 47-year-old wife Nancy's lost fight with cancer to his assurance that she is alive with Christ today. Although he professes to write not just for Christians, but "for anyone who knows grief, loss, pain, or suffering," (p. 21) his story is pervaded by the presence of a loving God. It is also pervaded by the presence of those little girls, Amy, Kristin, and Brittany, and their Daddy. How often I looked back at the photo of the family complete with its mother. The first of the book's two dominant images comes from Margaret Wise Brown's children's classic, The Runaway Bunny. Brown's mother bunny vows to pursue her little one every time he runs away. "The little bunny knows that he will always be the object of his mother's affection" (p. 26). This motif entwines the human theme around the theological treatise. God, the ultimate Mother Bunny, manifests the same loyal love. The author himself displays it, assuring eight-year-old Amy that, "Even though Mommy's gone, Daddy's here, and I'm not going anywhere" (p. 83). The Light That Never Dies, however, reaches beyond bunnies and their mothers, apt as that image may be. Neither is it only a memoir of God sustaining a family through intense pain, though He clearly does. Revealing his Dallas Seminary theological training and didactic writing experience, Hendricks uses a second image, from Ecclesiastes 7:2. "It is better to go to a house of mourning than to go to a house of feasting." But where was God in the Holocaust, Columbine, and 9-11? In the Challenger explosion and sniper deaths? In personal loss? Why is it better to go to the House of Mourning? From Ecclesiastes come biblical precepts for suffering. Life is brief. Death is not final. God comforts. A book that might have become unbearably tragic instead brings hope from one who grieves with understanding. Heartwarming moments intersperse with excruciating times to provide stamina to persevere. As serious lessons creep from the story, so a husband's love glimmers in the little mentions, such as Nancy's favorite Earl Grey tea. And in his visual depictions of their special times. "Our surroundings gradually took form as the light intensified, like a Polaroid slowly developing" (p. 29). With tenderness and candor, Hendricks evaluates his journey from the news of Nancy's diagnosis, through her sickness and death, to his own mourning and recovery. He admits his feelings. "Suffering is an a cappella solo" (p. 13). He declares theological truth. "Evil is real" (p. 39). He offers practical advice for those who console. "Loving care is best expressed in emotions and actions, not theology or philosophy" (p. 136). And he proclaims for our comfort that God is "utterly trustworthy" (p. 132). "His lovingkindness is everlast

Everyone should read this book. Those currently grieving will find comfort and hope. Those that have been there will find words that describe all they have gone through. Many will find helpful insights into thier experience. Those who have not yet grieved over a loved one, will be better prepared for that day. Bill Hendricks puts into words an experience that is difficult to describe. I felt like I was there with him. He does not pull any punches about the pain, doubts or hard questions. He has been there, but through it all there is hope. The Light never dies, and we can all take comfort in that thought.

On his 39th birthday William Hendricks had it all: a loving wife, three beautiful daughters, and a fulfilling career. Three weeks later his wife was diagnosed with breast cancer, and by his 49th birthday a decade of his life had been consumed with the process of her dying and his grieving. It was a mid-life crisis of tragic proportions. Three years and a day after his wife's death, a first-grade girl was killed while crossing the street just blocks from Hendricks's home. The driver behind the wheel of an SUV, blinded by the sun, ran her over. And two more families, and classmates and teachers and neighbors, entered the "house of mourning." The tragedy haunted Hendricks, causing him to ask himself whether he'd learned anything from the experience of his wife's death that would be helpful during such a time. A LIGHT THAT NEVER DIES is his answer. He navigates between his own calamity and larger, better-known tragedies, examining the connections between all mortals --- the looming and sometimes unexpected specter of death. "So then, what's the connection between the bungled economics of the Great Leap Forward or the massive genocides of the twentieth century, and my wife's death in October of 2000? Simply this: in both cases we're talking about death. But whereas the deaths of people in rice paddies or labor camps are known to me only as sobering statistics and disturbing headlines, Nancy was Nancy. Nancy was a face, and a voice, and a person, and a presence. Nancy was my wife. Nancy was the mother of our three children. Nancy knew my name. Nancy knew the best of me. Nancy knew the worst of me. Nancy knew my heart," he writes. Hendricks has written a number of excellent books, most of them quite didactic in nature. He certainly is a gifted teacher, and that dynamic comes through in this memoir. It can feel somewhat stiff and outlined, especially in transition from chapter to chapter. But, having said that, there are also sections of this book where the outline fades away and what's left is deeply moving, including the scene that played out in his home when he and Nancy told their daughters that Nancy's cancer had metastasized. Hendricks has a strong grounding in theology and he, helpfully, puts suffering in a biblical context. He doesn't spiritualize pain away. Instead he digs into passages from Ecclesiastes and explores the Hebrew word "hebel," the experience of having one's hopes and expectations dashed to pieces. "I'm all for stopping to smell the roses. But Ecclesiastes reminds us that it's a gift to be able to smell at all. And sometimes there aren't any roses --- at least, none that you can see. Ironically, that's exactly the point at which many people who, like me describe themselves as Christians, have a particularly hard time sticking with reality," he writes. Above all, this is a book about reality --- about death and pain and suffering. But it's also about the way suffering brings both the best and the worst of life into sharp reli

this is my dad's book, and having read it a couple times as he was writing it, i have to say its so amazing. everybody should read it; its very personal and open and also can be very healing. i miss my mom every day and am so glad that our family can now help others. please read our story because it is truly incredible.