In spite of the fact that 1 in every 115 deliveries is a stillborn baby, stillbirth continues to be a taboo subject. In Life Touches Life, Lorraine Ash describes how she met that silence head-on. After a trouble-free pregnancy, her baby was declared dead on what was to be her date of birth. Following a C-section, Ash fought a fever that raged at 104 degrees and almost succumbed to the silent B-strep infection that had killed her daughter. Devastated by the experience, Ash sought solace and perspective in all the old places and found little relief. In this moving account she discusses the inner changes she faced after the stillbirth of her daughter, delves into spiritual questions that shook her soul, and examines the connection between mother and child that transcends separation and death.
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Lorraine Ash, MA, is the author of "Self and Soul: On Creating a Meaningful Life" (Cape House Books, 2012) and "Life Touches Life: A Mother's Story of Stillbirth and Healing" (NewSage Press, 2004). Both are spiritual memoirs, an old but evolving genre she believes in as a catalyst for personal healing and transformation and social change.
"We each were born as a character into a large family and cultural story," she said, "and not always in the roles we would have chosen for ourselves. Then fate takes us in unexpected directions. Writing spiritual memoir is a way to weave our outer and inner lives to create meaning and trace and direct our evolving identities over time, including that timeless core in each of us called the soul."
What does all that have to do with social change? Nothing helps the human race see and understand itself more than such honest witnessing in every corner of the human experience. There is no taboo territory in autobiographical writing, which the author William Dean Howells once called "the most democratic province in the republic of letters."
In her workshops and writing retreats Lorraine fuses rigorous literary techniques with a wide range of spiritual and philosophical thought. Participants learn to find their strongest writing voice, structure their stories in compelling ways, and see their lives from surprising and useful new angles. All these goals are achieved in an informal backdrop of serenity and relaxation. Why? Because gracious contemplation is a friend to creativity. The ultimate achievement always is for the writer to lead herself, and her readers, to some spiritual truth.
Lorraine also writes shorter memoiric works that have appeared in anthologies, including "Steeped in the World of Tea," and various journals and webzines such as Cairn, Journeys, Ducts, and Recovering the Self: A Journal of Hope and Healing. But she doesn't always write memoir and autobiographical fiction.
A full-time journalist, Lorraine enjoys the challenges of writing stories about other people and the issues and forces that impact their lives. She has been an editor/reporter in her native New Jersey since 1982, the year she earned her master's degree in Communications from Fordham University in the Bronx. Currently, she writes for the Daily Record, where her feature articles and special series have won national, state, and regional awards. She belongs to the Story Circle Network and the Association of Writers and Writing Programs.
This book was recommended to me by my grief counselor. I was a bit skeptical at first, as the author had a stillborn child, while I lost a 2 year old to Pediatric Cancer. However, it turned out to be one of the most helpful books I read. Lorraine Ash helped me heal, even just a little bit, and I am grateful to her. Reading a book actually written by a bereaved mom was infinitely more helpful than all of the books I read written by therapists who have not experienced the same kind of loss I have. I have copied quite a few exerps from her book, and read them from time to time when I need a lift. I believe I may actually get to meet the author, when she is in NY for a Walk to Remember children who have lost their lives. I hope so!
I am truly sorry for all of you bereaved parents who are searching for a book to soothe their soul. I hope you find this book as comforting as I did.
This book is a great, unique book for parents who are grieving after the loss of a stillborn baby. My husband and I lost our first son, and were given lots of books on the process of grieving, the steps involved, and the rituals involved. After reading those books (which were very helpful and needed), this book was a breath of fresh air. This book contains one family's story about the loss of their child and what they went through after her death. It is written from the mother's point of view, which is both a great support for other Moms and a great window into the mother's mind-set for Dads. It was like listening to someone who has gone through this terrible loss, and knowing you can survive. I would recommend it to anyone who has lost a child via a stillbirth, and it would probably also be useful for family and friends to help them understand what the parents are going through.
I, too, have lost a child--a beautiful son named Ryan who was stillborn at 28 weeks--and this book puts so much of the pain & sorrow that my family & I experienced into words.
This book should be read not only by those who've experienced the loss of a child themselves, but by those in the medical field--OBGYNs, neonatal nurses, labor and delivery medical staff--as it may help to educate them in dealing with bereaved parents in a sensitive manner.
This account of stillbirth is so personal, so vividly described, that Lorraine Ash could be considered The Voice for bereaved mothers who have so long struggled to put our loss into words & to try to make others (who are often insensitive or not understanding of the pain we endure) understand.
I am so sorry for anyone that loses a child to stillbirth, and I feel lucky to have found Ash's book. She was so brave--a loving and devoted mother of an Angel--to share her pain with us in this moving tribute to Victoria.
