Longing for My Child: Reflections for Parents and Siblings after a Child's Death

A companion for the journey through grief

I keep waiting to hear the bang of the screen door, the thump of schoolbooks landing on the dining-room table, and the creak of the refrigerator door. I didn’t even realize that I was waiting for those familiar sounds that I won’t hear again.
—excerpted from the book

 

Christine O’Keeffe Lafser has endured the deaths of four of her children. In Longing for My Child, she offers her own reflections as well as those of grieving parents and siblings in the hope that they will provide reassurance to others in their grief, inspire courage and perseverance, and allow glimmers of hope to shine through.

 

"If you cannot read this book, someone must read it to you—gently. Written by one pierced by life’s sharpest arrows, a bearer and mourner of departed children, this book can be our companion as we go into the unknowable."
—Deacon Patricio Torres, St. Paul’s Catholic Church, Virginia

 

"This is a book filled with wisdom and strength. It reminds grieving parents and siblings that they are not alone, that God is with them, and will help them, as they travel from a state of emptiness and near-despair to the point where their hearts are once more filled with peace and they realize that life exists after death."
—Robert N. Craig, O.F.M. Cap., hospital chaplain