Customer Reviews

Sunshower

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On November 3, 1978, Dick Kenyon - husband, father, university employee and stained glass artist -- took his own life. That event is at the heart of Sunshower, but the book is much more than a story of a suicide. It is largely a survivor's tale, eloquently and unflinchingly told by his wife, Karen. With the grace of a poet and the insight of someone who has lived through the unthinkable, Karen Kenyon chronicles her life with Dick and the process of coming to terms with his end. In sharing this ultimately affirming story, Kenyon explores the most profound questions any of us can ask about life and love and the mystery that is every human being. I strongly recommend this beautiful book.

As a psychotherapist in private practice, I am often asked to recommend a book to help someone through a "dark wood." This is such a book. Ms. Kenyon is fiercely brave in her telling of her husband's suicide and what came after. How does one survive the unthinkable, sort out enough of (for so much here is unknowable) the grief, guilt, anger, self-blame, and fear so that life is again possible for those left behind? How does anyone go on to reclaim some right place in the world and some right place in the heart for the loved one who has chosen to die? This book is filled with the quiet courage too often unacknowledged of just keeping on, of continuning to do what feels right and necessary when life is so difficult we're not sure we can stand it. Ms. Kenyon shares with us her courage, guidance, wisdom, even humor. She makes us a map of those places the ancients used to mark by saying, "Here Be Dragons." She helps us find again a world that remembers light, hope, laughter. What Elisabeth Kubler-Ross saw and recommended some years ago in SUNSHOWER is as relevant now as it was when this book was first published. My hard-back copy of this book has been loaned out again and again over the years. Nothing recent has been able to replace it. I am so glad SUNSHOWER is back in print.