Touching the Edge: A Mother's Spiritual Path From Loss to Life [Hardcover]

Margaret Wurtele (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 31, 2003

Praise for Touching the Edge

"Touching the Edge is an homage to love, loss, and the rising grace that comes when grief is transformed into peace. Margaret Wurtele's bow to her son, Phil, is a story we can all recognize within the context of each family's dance with death. Her words can heal the fall of a human heart."
-Terry Tempest Williams, author of Refuge, Red, and Leap

"Touching the Edge is an extraordinary memoir. Margaret Wurtele writes of the most painful events a parent can ever imagine, and yet she writes so honestly, so clearly, with prose as lucid and shimmering as cut crystal, that the book shines with a quiet grace. I too have a single grown child. I read this book and trembled. But I also saw, through Margaret Wurtele's eyes, a glimpse of the light that guided her through the darkness. It was a privilege to read this book."
-Susan Allen Toth, author of Blooming: A Small-Town Girlhood and My Love Affair with England

"I happened to be climbing on Rainier the day that Phil was killed, and I often wondered who he was, what he was like. Now, thanks to this beautifully told account, I have a very good idea. And I have an even clearer sense of what it means to be a parent, and a child of God. This book will choke you up, but the tears will be more than worth it."
-Bill McKibben, author of The End of Nature and Long Distance: Testing the Limits of Body and Spirit in a Year of Living Strenuously

"The experience of love and loss, when shared, can become the alchemy of a rebirth of the spirit in others. In this journey to the other side of grief, Margaret Wurtele is fearlessly true to her experience of loss and makes herself available to be an agent of transformation for her readers. This is the glory of the human story: we really are 'members of one another' whether we realize it or not."
-Alan Jones, Dean of Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, and author of Seasons of Grace, The Soul's Journey, and Living the Truth

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In a previous book dealing with spiritual growth (Taking Root), the author illuminated her journey to Christianity after a childhood spent within a secular home. In this memoir Wurtele, co-founder of Ruminator Books, beautifully describes how the death of her only child darkened her life and tested her religious awakening. An avid mountain climber, Phil, the author's 22-year-old son, was a summer intern at Washington State's Mount Rainier Park. He was killed with a ranger on a rescue mission to assist an injured climber. Interspersed with moving portraits of Phil's short life, the author's memories of the pain that consumed her during this first year of mourning. She was fortunate to have the love and support of her husband (Phil's stepfather) as well as a good relationship with three grown stepchildren who became even closer to her after Phil's accident. It was, however, Wurtele's commitment to religion that provided her with the sustenance to go on during this difficult time. Wurtele found emotional relief in a retreat that she took at the Episcopal House of Prayer and in exploring the writings of John of the Cross. Ecumenical in her outlook, she also attended another retreat conducted by a Catholic priest who had studied Zen meditation intensively. Wurtele shares the dreams and visions of Phil that came to her during this period as well as the deepening faith that gave her the courage to accept her adventurous son's death.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Every mother knows her children will leave the nest one day. Wurtele knew this and was doing her best to let her son, Phil, go, even though he had a passion for living on life's edge, expressed in bungee jumping and mountain climbing, that mystified her. She allowed him to pursue those hardy pastimes despite her fears. But just as she was becoming comfortable with letting go of the desire to control his life, she had to learn how to let go of him completely. When she received word that her 22-year-old had died in a mountain-climbing accident, she was first certain she would die, too. The daughter of "lively agnostics," Wurtele had begun, however, exploring spirituality late in life--in the nick of time, as it happened, to be rescued from total despair over Phil's death. The story of how yoga, meditation, and heightened spirituality helped Wurtele see a bigger picture, survive the worst thing a parent can imagine, and grow stronger after it, is inspiring and instructive. Donna Chavez
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Wiley; 1 edition (January 31, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0471222879
• ISBN-13: 978-0471222873
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.4 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,157,587 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Margaret Wurtele is the author of two memoirs: Touching the Edge: A Mother's Spiritual Path from Loss to Life and Taking Root: a Spiritual Memoir. She and her husband divide their time between Minneapolis and the Napa Valley, where they are the owners of Terra Valentine winery. Her first novel, The Golden Hour, will be released in February 2012

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A brilliant book - I was taken by surprise, June 19, 2003

By 

Gail (Sudbury, MA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Touching the Edge: A Mother's Spiritual Path From Loss to Life (Hardcover)

I was given this book as a 50th birthday present by a dear friend. Ouch! I thought. Do I really want to read such a painful book? Planning to read it "later" I casually picked it up to read the beginning. I was hooked - I couldn't put it down. Margaret Wurtele has done an amazing job of opening up a very private window to let those of us who have not lost a child see what it is like. That curiousity compelled me to keep reading. Her honesty at describing her experiences is searing. But she places this experience within the context of the spiritual journey she had already begun a few years before her son died. But don't think this means she writes one size fits all religious platitudes. Far from it. The experiences she writes about ring authentically and nothing is sugar coated. She asks herself the hard questions and generously shares her most personal answers. The book is beautifully paced, bringing the reader along step by step with the author on this journey. There is no preaching, only listening and talking. I was moved and inspired by her story and I feel grateful the book fell into my lap.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Touching The Edge, June 19, 2003

By 

Arthur Mampel (Seattle, Wa. United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Touching the Edge: A Mother's Spiritual Path From Loss to Life (Hardcover)

Some time ago I came across an article in the Seattle Post Intelligencer that told of two young forest rangers who had climbed Mount Ranier to help rescue a stranded hiker. They were tied together and both skidded off the mountain to their death. It was one of those stories that sticks in your mind. When I came across Margaret Wurtele's book, Touching The Edge, I bought it at once and could not put it down. Margaret Wurtele, the mother of one of the young climbers, wrote with such feeling and clarity, that I, too, was touching the edge and came to realize once again the worth of the solitary individual in our world society.

5.0 out of 5 stars The Spiritual imperative of grief, June 23, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Touching the Edge: A Mother's Spiritual Path From Loss to Life (Hardcover)

Magaret Wurtele exposes her wounded heart and brings us into her struggle in a way that can only be described as stunning. The writing is honest, spare and captivating, born of the stength of one who obviously knows what she doesn't like in writing, she painstakingly crafts the sentences to allow us to travel through this first year of grieving without obstacles or distactions.

Most importantly, Ms Wurtele is honest. Her spiritual path is being crafted beautifully by a force that she dances with,with tenacity, integrity and awe.