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Launched with a powerful narrative thrust of the suicide of her son in 1978,
LaRita Archibald leads the reader from the initial trauma of violent death,
through the ragged, brutal and unknown psychological and emotional landscape
that must be traversed to find eventual peace. Using lessons learned from
decades of work with suicide bereaved LaRita helps survivors of suicide loss
have a framework for understanding the complexities of suicide grief and the
reassurance that what they are experiencing is normal for what they have
experienced. She gives names to the unsettling experiences of phantom pain
and flashbacks and validates feelings of anger, responsibility, frustration,
even relief, and the need to search for answers, reasons and cause.
By addressing the concept of choice, and the impact of religious beliefs,
misconceptions and age-old bias LaRita helps uncover layers of cultural
influence that often create barriers to healing. She shares anecdotes of
military suicide loss, the compounded tragedy of murder/suicide and multiple
suicide loss and how those left behind gained the strength to work through the
extreme circumstance of their tragedies. She offers practical advice for
protecting the marriage after a child’s suicide, for meeting needs of bereaved
children and for taking care of one’s physical, emotional and spiritual self
during acute grief. She acknowledges the evolvement of a ‘new normal’; the
adjustment to the physical and social environment suicide grievers must make to
live beyond the death of the one who died and, as well, to live with the fact of
suicide as the cause of the death. LaRita offers the reader suggestions for
moving from being a victim to a survivor, and, eventually, a “thriver”.
In the book, Finding Peace Without All The Pieces, LaRita Archibald helps the
reader place the puzzling pieces of their own loss into a mosaic that brings
hope and healing just by reading it. She extends the promise that the
overwhelming anguish of today will eventually subside into manageable sorrow,
that the suicide of one dearly loved is survivable and there is healing and
peace awaiting in the future. She takes the hand of suicide bereaved,
lending the strength of her own healing, as she helps them cross crevasses of
deep suffering and tread the rugged paths through mountains of grief toward a
plateau of peace. All the while she comforts and encourages, telling them,
“Take my hand, dear survivor. You are not alone. I’ve made this
bitter journey. I’ll show you the way.” |
