Book Review: “To the Brink and Back” by Kelly Farley with David Dicola.

Like the author of this book I searched long and hard for resources to help grieving men and found them difficult to find. This book had me hooked early with phrases like “this book ain’t no Oprah book of the month club”, “There isn’t anything worse than the loss of a child, and if there is, I don’t want to know about it” and “without exception there are no dads who would not trade places with their children”.

This book is glaringly honest. It does not promise to deliver a magic solution. It just tells the experiences of the men who contributed. Part of the real strength of this book is allowing dads to tell the story of their children, and to acknowledge the important role they have played in who they are. Regardless of how our children died we are still proud fathers and we want to acknowledge our children’s existence.

The book offers two pieces of advice (for the reader to take or leave):

1. Find the help that is best for you. Some of the men found support in their faith, other through seeking professional help, some through support groups like Red Nose and other through family and friends. This book does not preach and visits some very dark places in examining the road that we as grieving dads travel.
2. Many of the men in the book found that by helping others that had suffered the death of a child(ren) they also helped themselves.

This book contains such a broad range of experience one cannot help but find a connection to a shared experience. The book can be purchased from Amazon or directly from Kelly Farley’s web page (just google Grieving Dads). I have since purchase 2 extra copies one of which I am handing around to grieving parents, and the other I have placed up at work on our reading shelf.