Tuesday, November 1, 2011

Proof of Heaven

Raise your hand if you like a tear jerker book that puts your life into perspective sometimes? Well then grab your Kleenex and this book.

Proof of Heaven by Mary Curran Hackett
Proof of Heaven: A Novel
A mother’s faith, a child’s courage, a doctor’s dedication—a moving and thought-provoking tale of hope, love, and family. He might be young, but Colm already recognizes the truth: that he’s sick and not getting better. His mother, Cathleen, fiercely believes her faith will protect her ailing son, but Colm is not so sure. With a wisdom far beyond his years, Colm has come to terms with his probable fate, but he does have one special wish. He wants to meet his father who abandoned his beloved mother before Colm was born. But the quest to find the dying boy’s missing parent soon becomes a powerful journey of emotional discovery—a test of belief and an anxious search for proof of heaven.

I will tell you right now that as a parent of two children this book hit home. Not because I have an ill child or have ever had to experience making decisions all the while knowing that your child is still going to die you just have to make him comfortable on that journey, but because I know what it is like to love a child so fiercely that you would do anything to make it all better. Nobody can ever understand what it's like to love a child like a mother can- between carrying that child and knowing that it's solely you nurturing the baby to existence and then knowing that you can't always protect them is something you can't experience unless you've done it. So with that, I knew reading this book my heart would break and I would hug my kids extra tight and thank my stars that I have been so fortunate with good health and happy hearts.

What I liked about this book is that you know upfront how it's going to end and that a child's untimely death is really maybe timely and purposeful. It sounds terrible but I think that every death is timely- we are all meant to go when we go, but if you don't take something from that death then it makes it tragic. So with Colm's death as sad as you know it's going to be, I think the story the author weaves around him is beautiful. He wasn't meant to live a long life, but he was meant to change the lives he was a part of and he does that.

I will be honest, the part of the story where he questions heaven breaks my heart. To think of a child as young as him questioning whether heaven is real or not is sad. Maybe that's what I found to be the saddest part of the book for me. Not so much that we was going to die, but that he is more worried about what will happen to him and what will happen to his mother. It breaks my heart to think of that because Colm reminded me a lot of my own Jackson.

I don't want to go into too much of the book but I really encourage you to read it. It will break your heart, it will make you cry, it will make you thankful but above all- I think it makes you look at those in your life and really think about their purpose in your life. A quote that is in the book that is remarked as belong to C.S Lewis was, "Prayer doesn't change God, it changes me." It's food for thought.

I'm the first person on this book tour, but I encourage you to check back as the tour progresses to see what others are saying about it HERE. Mary also has a website, Twitter and Facebook so to learn more about her, please check those out as well.

2 comments:

Suze said...

It sounds really intense and I like intense. Thank you for the recommendation- it's going on my list!

Suze
www.suzeblog.com

Anonymous said...

Although my son's medical condition isn't life threatening it IS something we have to deal with every day, and it requires regular procedures at the hospital. I'm sure that this book would have me sobbing!

Thanks for the great review for the tour!