The Final Mile By Faye Landrum

This is another book that I can recommend. While working as a Social Worker I often get to speak with spouses that are trying to cope with having to say goodbye to their loved ones. I listen to them and try to empathize  but luckily I have not had to lose my husband.  I can’t allow my  mind to dwell on this subject and at the same time I needed to know how to offer support to these family members.

Faye Landrum had to go through the horrible pain of saying goodbye to the man that she was married to after more than 40 years. She shares their journey together and what her fears were. She shared what he was going through as well and how important the support of family, friends and Hospice were to them during this time.

Her book doesn’t hold back. She shared how one day when the pain of his cancer became almost unbearable he asked her,  “Would you think ill of me if I took my own life?”  She assured him that she wouldn’t think ill of him but that she wished that he wouldn’t do it. 

She shared her frailty and how difficult it was for her to go through this experience. She offers suggestions and validates many of the feelings that people experience and are afraid to talk about. Such as wishing that you have a few moments to yourself and then feeling guilty because you know your loved one is in pain and afraid.

If you know of anyone who is going through something similar and needs to know that they are not alone I highly recommend this book. Often someone who is losing their spouse will be afraid to admit their feelings because they feel guilty for having totally natural feelings. She offers suggestions on ways to simplify the process of losing your loved one. The importance of planning your wills, your advanced directives, living will, etc…

She also discusses all of the many gifts that Hospice provided for their family. They assisted with pain medications, respite relief and emotional support when the days became very rough. She explained the process of planning the funeral and all of the many details of setting someone’s estate. I learned many things from this book and hopefully it will make me a better, more compassionate Social Worker with my families.

Faye Landrum is a Christian and she shares her beliefs in this book as well. I know that I will be getting copies of this book and providing to them my loved ones for when they are needed.  No one wants to think about death but it is a reality that eventually we all must die. I hope that I can embrace the process much better after having read Ms. Landrum’s account of her personal journey when losing her husband.. Whether it is sparing my husband many of the painful experiences that someone has when they lose a spouse or if I am the one left behind if he passes before me. This book was a blessing for me.

The Secret Life and Brutal Death of Mamie Thurman

I haven’t shared a book review with you all for a while. I have spoken about Mamie Thurman before and now I want to share more about her with you.

The Secret Life and Brutal Death of Mamie Thurman by F. Keith Davis is a wonderful account of what occurred in Logan, WV back in 1932. You have to remember that in 1932 it was still a time of prohibition and organized crime was rampant. Bootlegging was big in WV and moonshine stills were everywhere. Logan was considered to be a booming profitable town back in those days. Looking at the town of Logan now you wouldn’t exactly picture what you read about it being back then.

Mamie Thurman was a beautiful woman who happened to be married to a Logan police officer. Her husband worked most evenings and she was known about town as the Stratton Street Vixen. She had a key to the local speak easy and was believed to have her own apartment in a local brothel. During the trial of the man accused of murdering her it came out that she had 16 different lovers all of which were businessmen of importance in Logan.

I don’t want to give too much away because I want you to read the book. It is so well written that it keeps your attention. I do not believe that the man convicted of killing her is the actual murderer. I believe that what was written on page 178 is the true account of what actually occurred to her.

My friend Libby and I went geocaching a while back and you might recall my writing about it here.

http://grace2882.wordpress.com/2009/03/02/mamie-thurman/

Wow, that was 2 years ago. I had no idea it was so long ago. Anyway, we ended up being in the cemetery where Mamie was first buried. Someone went in during the night and removed her body and no one seems to know where she is buried. Not even her brother. This was taken at the cemetery.

 

Next we went geocaching up on Mine 22 road and ended up where Mamie’s body had originally been discovered. While there we found this huge painting of what people believe her ghost to look like.

 

People claim that her ghost still haunts Mine 22 road. There are pictures in the book showing what people believe to be her ghost standing in windows as well. I am not sure that I believe that her ghost is haunting the mountain but it could be possible. Her neck had been broken, her throat slit and she was shot in the head twice.  That is a very brutal way to die.

The author presents the details of the investigation, trial and what happened to the poor man convicted of killing her.  The man who was convicted was an African-American who was a dwarf. The KKK was very strong in Logan at that time and people were afraid.

When you are finished with the book you are left to come to your own conclusion of what actually happened to the Stratton Street Vixen.  Libby and I discussed at great length Saturday evening what we believe occurred to Mamie. During the trial her husband testified that he had no idea his wife was frequenting speak easy’s and having affairs. He never admitted to her having an apartment in a brothel. I don’t see how he could be on the police department with these establishments practically on the same block and not know that your wife is doing these things.

So if you have read this book or have researched the death of Mamie Thurman lets discuss it.

The Last Town On Earth by Thomas Mullen

 

I really enjoyed this book. This book was done like a commentary of sorts. The scene is a town in the northwest named Commonwealth. It is set in 1918 and an epidemic is sweeping the nation. A rare and deadly form of flu is killing people and wiping out entire towns in its path. This little town has not experienced the flu yet and they decide to quarantine themselves in order to keep it out. No one leaves and no one comes in.

They take turns standing guard to keep out visitors. Their food and necessities run low and even run out. Each family is trying to protect itself. This book really makes you stop and think. If you knew that helping your neighbor could cause your children to die would you help? If you weren’t sure how long the quarantine would last would you share your food, fuel or other items?

The members of this town have to deal with exactly this situation. They learn things about themselves and about others. No one really knows what they would do unless put in this situation. This is what is available from the author’s website.

The year is 1918. America is fighting a war on foreign soil that has divided the nation. Meanwhile, rumors of the spread of the deadliest epidemic ever are causing panic on the home front. The uninfected town of Commonwealth, Washington, votes to quarantine itself, and two young friends are asked to guard the town entrance and keep strangers out.

One day, a starving, cold—and seemingly ill—soldier comes out of the woods begging for sanctuary, and the two guards are confronted with an agonizing moral dilemma.

So begins The Last Town on Earth .

I highly recommend reading this one. It really changed the way I look at how my family could survive if something like this happened. Perhaps not an illness but perhaps a natural disaster that we would have to be self-sufficient for a few weeks or so. Would we be prepared? Would we help our neighbors? I would hope that we would be but after reading this book I am not so sure how I would react. Human nature is to survive and to protect your loved ones.  I would certainly hope that I would be able to assist others as well.

Vanishing Act by Jodi Picoult

I have read several of Jodi Picoult’s books and while I had no trouble with this book keeping my interest, I was not exactly impressed with this one. Usually Picoult is able to make us feel the emotional turmoil that all of the characters are experiencing but I just couldn’t relate to this one.  The book was good but not great which is what I have become accustomed to with Picoult’s books. It could be that this was just not a subject that I could relate to.

The premise is of a woman who had been kidnapped by her father when she was four years old. She is now in her early 30s and the police catch up with them and her father is arrested. She had been told by her father that her mother had died. Now she has to struggle with learning about her past and trying to help her father get out of jail.

Her father has to adapt to being in a rough jail where gang wars and violence are a daily occurrence. He realizes that he is not that different from the others but that he is not strong enough to survive in that world. He hooks up with another inmate who makes and deals meth to other inmates. Directions on how to make the meth was given in great detail which I found worrisome.

As a social worker who has seen the devastation that meth has made in the lives of the children that I have worked with I really wished that Picoult had not gone into such detail describing how to make meth. Is that something that people really need to know?

I know it sounds as if I hated the book and I didn’t hate it at all. I just didn’t love it. All of her other books that I have read left me feeling such anguish for the characters. I just could not at any time personally feel for anyone other than Sophie who had been taken cross-country to follow her grandparent, forced to change from living in a suburban home to living in a bubble gum pink mini trailer and having the grandfather that she spent time with daily suddenly taken from her.

I also had trouble with Delia automatically allowing the neighbor in this trailer park that is selling hand-made dolls to start babysitting Sophie. She did not know this woman and since she was quirky in her own way you would have thought Delia would have been a bit more cautious in allowing a stranger to keep her daughter so easily. This book confused me and left me feeling empty. Again not saying I hated the book. Just didn’t love it.

The Broken Hearts Club by Ethan Black

This was an excellent book. I had never read anything by this author before and was pleasantly surprised. I looked forward to my quiet time each evening while in bed reading shortly before falling asleep. I found myself talking about the book with coworkers throughout the week.

The book is a thriller and it kept my interest throughout the entire book. You became afraid for different characters in the book and wondered what would happen next. At no time throughout the book was I able to imagine what would happen with these characters.

There were a lot of characters to keep track of but the author did an excellent job of helping the reader be able to separate and keep them straight. I thoroughly enjoyed the ending. Most authors would have had the characters go in a totally different direction but Black’s decision that he made with these characters is more true to real life.

I am intentionally trying to avoid telling you too much of the plot of the book but will instead give you what is on the back of the book to give you a glimpse into the story line.

They meet every week in the dingy back room of a bar in New York City. An informal group of men with the one thing in common. They all suffer the sting of a broken heart. But soon the anger turns to hate. The rejection turns to rage. And the Broken Hearts Club spins violently out of control-exploding into murderous acts of vengeance.

Detective Voort is assigned the case, determined to catch an elusive killer who is always one death ahead…who appears to switch identities with each new victim..and who knows how to cover his tracks with cold efficiency. Then Voort falls victim to his own broken heart, as his ex-girlfriend becomes the target of a frightening new breed of serial terror…

Thunderstruck By Rachel Lee

I really had hope for this book when I first started it but unfortunately it left me horribly disappointed. After reading such a wonderful book as A Thousand Splendid Suns I wanted a fluff book and this book with it being a romance, paranormal mystery I thought it could fill the bill. Nope. It wasn’t to be.

This book is actually two stories in one book. The first story was about a woman who bought a house that was haunted. She lived next door to a man who was a retired military man who also happened to have ESP. Well the ESP part of it could have been used to add a comical aspect of the romance but it fell short.

Unfortunately I was able to figure out who the ghost was that was haunting the woman within the first three chapters. So that left me with the romance portion of the book. Once the couple finally consummated their relationship it appeared that they were bouncing off of each other constantly and it seemed to be used to fill space in the pages of the book for a lack of a good plot. They came together at totally unnatural times when a serious mystery would have been chasing down the ghost to get rid of the haunting. Bad moves all around in this storyline.

The second story I knew was doomed from the very beginning. The woman was a scientist who wanted to study the lives of a wolf pack. While in the woods she meets a native american man who was determined to protect the sacred ground of Thunder Mountain. I am usually very disappointed when people who are not Native Americans try to share their feelings and importance of their beliefs. Rachel Lee did not do this very well. The man, Gray Cloud came off poorly.

In this story she had the mountain being an entity and it had thoughts and was determined to kill people. It had the ability to read people’s thoughts and to exact revenge on them.

This book was entirely fluff but unfortunately it wasn’t even good fluff. I do not recommend this one.

A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini

I loved this book. I read it in four evenings of reading shortly before bed. This book was very emotional for me. My daughter had told me that it sparked a love for her for wanting to help the women in Afghanistan. I started watching the news and looking for everything so that I could see how things have changed since the 80s for women there. From the pictures that I saw on the news this past week with Hilary Clinton at a street fair in Kabul I see that the women are no longer being forced to wear burkas. I can’t imagine what it was like for them and am so grateful to be in this country.

The story follows the lives of two women who end up in the same home being married to the same abusive man. The things that they had to endure was heartbreaking. I don’t want to give too much away so that you won’t be disappointed when you read the book. The circumstances for these women infuriated me to want to bring change. But what is a grandma from WV to do to help them? That I have no idea. Knowing that there are women living there still enduring this kind of abuse saddens me. It infuriates me and makes me want to do something. What? I don’t know.

After reading this book I had to read something that was pure fluff. I do plan on reading Khaled Hosseini’s other book The Kite Runner but I will have to wait a couple of weeks before I do. I am completely drained but very enlightened. Definitely read this book. It is one of my top five favorite books as it is my daughters.

Women of Honor by Jeanne Hendricks

A few weeks ago when I was in Virginia visiting my daughter we went to a church yard sale. I found this book for fifty cents and had to read it. I was hooked on the first page.

This author has an incredible style of writing which really draws you right in. This book explains the many ways that God has shown in the Bible that he has predestined women to do amazing things in his name. Women were not made to be doormats or victims. We were made to be leaders in many ways and to bring forth amazing changes in God’s name. I was mesmerized by the many ways that she showed God’s power working in the lives of women.

I went online and looked up this incredible author and found that she has written many other books that I would love to read in the future. I also learned that she went on to be with the Lord in January of this year. What a glorious place she must be in.

I have many followers that have subscribed to this blog to receive email alerts when there is a new post. One thing that I have noticed is that any time I write a post about my Christian beliefs someone always unsubscribes on that same day. Is that going to keep me from writing about my faith? Nope. Not at all. If I can be a witness to even one I plan to do so. I encourage you to read this book and to see the many ways that God can use you. Do you want to be like Esther? I want to be like Esther. Which woman from the Bible do you wish you can see in yourself?

A Woman After God’s Own Heart by Elizabeth George

I have had this book listed on the side as the book that I am currently reading for a few weeks now. Each night I would get into my Bible study setting and read one chapter of this book. I wanted to really like this book but unfortunately I can’t say that. My opinion of this book was the exact opposite.

I try to always put positive things on my blog because no one really wants to read negativity but since I had it on the side for so long I felt that I owed it to my readers to give my opinion even if it wasn’t positive.

I have been having discussions with my friends about this book all week. All of them are very devout Christian women and they all found this book to be as demeaning to women as I did. I won’t go into great detail but I feel in my heart that this book could possibly cause women to stay in dangerous marriages and to be miserable their entire lives. God does not want that for us.

Some of the advice in the book is good. Unfortunately there is much that would allow women to be abused both mentally and physically. Women live with enough pressures of insecurities in their lives. We don’t need this book putting us in that situation even more.

We can be loving wives and women of God without losing our identities and being a doormat.  That is not our lot in life.

The Purpose Driven Life

Reading this book has put me through a personal journey and I am very grateful that I have read this. I think we can all relate to wondering if we are doing what we are purposed to do by God.  This book helps you to figure that out and shows you  what you need to change and how you need to grow.

The book began by totally confusing me more than before I began it. It asks me to ask myself, “What do I believe is my purpose?”  If you had asked me a few years ago I would have said without hesitation that it is to be the Social Worker that I am. But being a Social Worker can tear you down so quickly.

I work with children who are born with disabilities or later diagnosed with them whether they be Muscular Dystrophy or Cancer. I am usually called within a couple of days of diagnosis to go in and meet with the parents and help them with paperwork to assist in getting the child funding to try to save their lives. The parents are usually still in shock and often cry the entire time that I am there. I can understand this. If I were in their place I would be crying as well.

I have a multitude of obstacles to go around or plow my way through at times. There are days that I feel completely defeated and many days where I feel unappreciated by a few people. That brings me back to the book. God does not say that when fulfilling the purpose that he has for you that everything will go smoothly or you will be appreciated. You are simply to do what you are supposed to be doing.

I was very grateful that the book explained that God allowed circumstances to occur to you in order to put you in the place and mindset to do what He had planned for you to do. I have said so many times that had it not been for my son going through so many illnesses during his childhood and having to fight so hard for him that I would never have become a Social Worker working with disabilities. It wasn’t until Stephen was entering high school that I even voiced to my husband that I wanted to go back to college and become a Social Worker. He of course laughed and said that he knew it all along and was waiting for me to realize it myself.

Now, back to doubting myself recently. Over the past couple of years I have had many obstacles were work was related. I won’t go into what they were because that would be putting others down in the process and I will not do that. Once I learned to turn these people over to God and actually let go of the situation they immediately got better. I had one person that I was praying for constantly but instead of letting God take care of it I continued to try to fix it and nothing improved. Once I just let it go to Him the problem corrected itself. Just think of the time that I could have had peace had I let it go sooner?

Now, back to feeling unappreciated. Why do we humans constantly need to have the feelings of validation? Shouldn’t it be enough that we are serving Him? It should be but I wouldn’t be honest if I didn’t admit that I do need that validation at times. I have been praying while reading this book and asking God to show me my purpose. Three days before ending this book I received my answer.

I had a father of a child call me and he literally moved me to tears. He told me that he wanted to let me know that his precious little girl had passed away and that he believes God sent me to him just when they needed me the most.  He had many things to say and I will keep them to myself. He was calling me to tell me things that God had placed on his heart during his time of mourning that he really felt I needed to hear. What a wonderful gift this man was giving. He was in the worst possible pain that a parent can feel but he was answering God’s voice and was doing what God told him to do. I will never forget this child or these parents.

I now know that I am doing what God intended for me to do. While reading the first couple of chapters of the book it asks, “What do your friends and family think is your purpose?”

I sent a text message to my friends and family and got various responses. My poor friend Linda was very scared. She didn’t know that I was reading the book and thought that it was a suicide text. haha I am so sorry Linda. You are such a kind, dear friend. God has definitely sent you to me.

My son-in-law said to spoil Caleb. Well that is a given but I asked him to think deeper. He thought my purpose was possibly helping Diabetics with this blog. My Social Worker friends of course said, being a Social Worker and helping ill children. I definitely have to say that is my heart there. I do love being able to help children and their parents. Though it gets hard at times when I know that a child isn’t going to live to become an adult and that the parents are living one of my own worst nightmares.

For now I am going to follow where God has led me. I am going to continue to reach out to help others and try to make a difference to people who are hurting. May I ask for your prayers to give me the strength for the times when I am weak and cry all the way home after being with parents whose hearts are breaking? I know that I can do this. I know that God will bring me through this. I know God had a plan for me when giving me life experiences that lead me to this place of understanding. I will lead a purpose driven life for God.