Did You Ever Have A Family

Download or read book Did You Ever Have a Family written by Bill Clegg and published by Random House. This book was released on 2015-08-25 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book of dark secrets opens with a blaze. On the morning of her daughter’s wedding, June Reid’s house goes up in flames, destroying her entire family – her present, her past and her future. Fleeing from the carnage, stricken and alone, June finds herself in a motel room by the ocean, hundreds of miles from her Connecticut home, held captive by memories and the mistakes she has made with her only child, Lolly, and her partner, Luke. In the turbulence of grief and gossip left in June’s wake we slowly make sense of the unimaginable. The novel is a gathering of voices, and each testimony has a new revelation about what led to the catastrophe – Luke’s alienated mother Lydia, the watchful motel owners, their cleaner Cissy, the teenage pothead who lives nearby – everyone touched by the tragedy finds themselves caught in the undertow, as their secret histories finally come to light. Lit by the clarity of understanding that true sadness brings, Did You Ever Have a Family is an elegant, unforgettable story that reveals humanity at its worst and best, through loss and love, fracture and forgiveness. At the book’s heart is the idea of family – the ones we are born with and the ones we create – and the desire, in the face of everything, to go on living.

Download or read book Ninety Days written by Bill Clegg and published by Little, Brown. This book was released on 2012-04-10 with total page 144 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The goal is ninety. Just ninety clean and sober days to loosen the hold of the addiction that caused Bill Clegg to lose everything. With six weeks of his most recent rehab behind him he returns to New York and attends two or three meetings each day. It is in these refuges that he befriends essential allies including Polly, who struggles daily with her own cycle of recovery and relapse, and the seemingly unshakably sober Asa. At first, the support is not enough: Clegg relapses with only three days left. Written with uncompromised immediacy, Ninety Days begins where Portrait of an Addict as a Young Man ends-and tells the wrenching story of Clegg's battle to reclaim his life. As any recovering addict knows, hitting rock bottom is just the beginning.

Download or read book The End of the Day written by Bill Clegg and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2020-09-29 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Following his acclaimed New York Times bestseller Did You Ever Have a Family, Bill Clegg returns with a “delicate, deeply observed, and deftly crafted” (Nickolas Butler, author of Shotgun Lovesongs) second novel about the complicated bonds and breaking points of friendship, the corrosive forces of secrets, the heartbeat of longing, and the redemption found in forgiveness. A retired widow in rural Connecticut wakes to an unexpected visit from her childhood best friend whom she hasn’t seen in forty-nine years. A man arrives at a Pennsylvania hotel to introduce his estranged father to his newborn daughter and finds him collapsed on the floor of the lobby. A sixty-seven-year-old taxi driver in Kauai receives a phone call from the mainland that jars her back to a traumatic past. These seemingly disconnected lives come together as half-century-old secrets begin to surface. It is in this moment that Bill Clegg reminds us how choices—to connect, to betray, to protect—become our legacy. “Written in lyrical, beautiful prose that makes even waking up seem like a poetic event” (Good Morning America), this novel is a feat of storytelling, capturing sixty years within the framework of one fateful day.

Download or read book Doing Life with Your Adult Children written by Jim Burns, Ph.D and published by Zondervan. This book was released on 2019-03-26 with total page 188 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Are you struggling to connect with your child now that they've left the nest? Are you feeling the tension and heartache as your relationship dynamic begins to change? In Doing Life with Your Adult Children, bestselling author and parenting expert Jim Burns provides practical advice and hopeful encouragement for navigating this tough yet rewarding transition. If you've raised a child, you know that parenting doesn't stop when they turn eighteen. In many ways, your relationship gets even more complicated--your heart and your head are as involved as ever, but you can feel things shifting, whether your child lives under your roof or rarely stays in contact. Doing Life with Your Adult Children helps you navigate this rich and challenging season of parenting. Speaking from his own personal and professional experience, Burns offers practical answers to the most common questions he's received over the years, including: My child's choices are breaking my heart--where did I go wrong? Is it OK to give advice to my grown child? What's the difference between enabling and helping? What boundaries should I have if my child moves back home? What do I do when my child doesn't seem to be maturing into adulthood? How do I relate to my grown child's significant other? What does it mean to have healthy financial boundaries? How can I support my grown children when I don't support their values? Including positive principles on bringing kids back to faith, ideas on how to leave a legacy as a grandparent, and encouragement for every changing season, Doing Life with Your Adult Children is a unique book on your changing role in a calling that never ends.

Download or read book Regretting Motherhood written by Orna Donath and published by North Atlantic Books. This book was released on 2017-07-11 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A provocative and deeply important study of women’s lives, women’s choices—and an ‘unspoken taboo’—that questions the societal pressures forcing women into motherhood Women who opt not to be mothers are frequently warned that they will regret their decision later in life, yet we rarely talk about the possibility that the opposite might also be true—that women who have children might regret it. Drawing on years of research interviewing women from a variety of socioeconomic, educational, and professional backgrounds, sociologist Orna Donath treats regret as a feminist issue: as regret marks the road not taken, we need to consider whether alternative paths for women currently are blocked off. She asks that we pay attention to what is forbidden by rules governing motherhood, time, and emotion, including the cultural assumption that motherhood is a “natural” role for women—for the sake of all women, not just those who regret becoming mothers. If we are disturbed by the idea that a woman might regret becoming a mother, Donath says, our response should not be to silence and shame these women; rather, we need to ask honest and difficult questions about how society pushes women into motherhood and why those who reconsider it are still seen as a danger to the status quo. Groundbreaking, thoughtful, and provocative, this is an especially needed book in our current political climate, as women's reproductive rights continue to be at the forefront of national debates.

Download or read book Primal Loss written by Leila Miller and published by Lcb Publishing. This book was released on 2017-05-20 with total page 326 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Seventy now-adult children of divorce give their candid and often heart-wrenching answers to eight questions (arranged in eight chapters, by question), including: What were the main effects of your parents' divorce on your life? What do you say to those who claim that "children are resilient" and "children are happy when their parents are happy"? What would you like to tell your parents then and now? What do you want adults in our culture to know about divorce? What role has your faith played in your healing? Their simple and poignant responses are difficult to read and yet not without hope. Most of the contributors--women and men, young and old, single and married--have never spoken of the pain and consequences of their parents' divorce until now. They have often never been asked, and they believe that no one really wants to know. Despite vastly different circumstances and details, the similarities in their testimonies are striking; as the reader will discover, the death of a child's family impacts the human heart in universal ways.

Download or read book The Perfect Dad written by Rob Stennett and published by Harvest House Publishers. This book was released on 2017-02-01 with total page 178 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Great Dads Aren't Perfect...But They Aspire to Be Congratulations, you're hired! You have no qualifications, references, education, or experience, but you've definitely got the job. No occupation in the world operates like that...except parenthood. A father of four young girls, Rob Stennett is here to help you with some on-the-job training. With humor and thought-provoking honesty, Rob explores the 12 essential roles in your job description, including... Provider—Manage the stress of balancing work and family by establishing clear priorities at home and in your career. Pastor—Teach the wonder of Scripture and how your kids can cultivate a faith in God they love and cherish. Husband—Alleviate the pressure of modeling a healthy relationship for your kids by focusing on your spouse's needs first. Counselor—Help your kids avoid emotional pitfalls by becoming their most trusted source of wisdom. You probably already know that becoming the perfect father is an unattainable goal, but that shouldn't stop you from trying your best to be a great dad. Your effort won't go unnoticed by your wife and kids. You can thrive in the most important job you've ever been given.