Brian L Erickson

When the Northern Lights Went Dark Brian L Erickson

"'Hello Mom. Hello Dad. It has been a long time.' I was standing over Mom's and Dad's graves. I was there not to say goodbye, but to say hello. Hello so that I could tell them about Pauline, the love of my life, whom they had never met." Thus begins Brian's book about the deaths of both of his parents--less than two years apart-- while he was in high school, and the death of his wife of 10 years, Pauline, 15 years later. This book is a love story, as Brian and Pauline search for meaning and hope as she is dying. This is a book about dying, built on Pauline's honest and powerful journal entries the last year of her life. This is a book about grieving, as Brian shares his psychological and spiritual journey to find healing and hope after the deaths of his parents, and then after the death of Pauline, constructed from Brian's journal entries the year after Pauline died. This book is for those who are facing death and struggle to understand who God is in reference to their suffering. This book is for those who have lost loved ones to death, and find that the journey to healing is so much more difficult than they could ever have imagined. Brian is honest and straightforward about his psychological journey as he confronts the guilt he feels about his father, the anger he feels toward his mother, and the depression and hopelessness he feels as Pauline dies and he tries to find a way to go on in life without her. Brian is also honest and straightforward about his spiritual journey, first, as he and Pauline try to understand the relationship of God to suffering, and, secondly, as he searches, after Pauline's death, to find hope and meaning again. This journey begins with a conservative, childhood theology in which everything that happens is God's will and evolves, through the study of philosophy, world religions, and Christian ethics, into a theology that finds healing through the presence and love of a God who cries with us in our suffering, invites us into a world of mystery and beauty and into a human community built on forgiveness, reconciliation, healing and the acceptance and embracing of all people.