Snapshots In Memory Of Ben, by Alan D. Busch

“Snapshots: in memory of Ben” will bring tears to your eyes.  Do buy this book.  Read it when you are ready to become engaged in your own processes – ranging from grief/sorrow/loss to healing.  It may take you a while to get through it; and you will most probably read individual passages over, again and again.  This is a book many of us have been waiting to write ourselves.  Alan has done it for us.

Adam Donaldson Powell

This is the heart-wrenching, intimate story of love and strength of one divorced Jewish family where the bechor, the older son, has suddenly died. His parents, and two remaining siblings, must recover from the tragedy of their family’s unexpected loss.  “During the publication of this book, I took a small step into the world of life and loss of the Busch family.  This is a devoted father’s memoir, who although stricken with unimaginable grief, has written in the spirit of celebration of the life of his beautiful son, Benjamin. The author’s words are honest and candid, as he shares family history and relays with impact, the untimely death of his beloved son. A ‘staightforward—deep-from-the-heart-and-soul read.’ For anyone who has or is going through the loss of a loved one, you must read this book.” 

Victoria Valentine, Water Forest Press Publisher

Snapshots In Memory Of Ben is a well written memoir of love and loss, appropriate for readers in all age categories, but particularly those readers dealing with members of a young family, struggling with the grief of losing a child. Memoirs take on the appearance of the real, in the way we have loved one another when the life shared in common vanishes. Memoirs appear as the re-presencing of this absence or loss, revealing to us that there is a value in our bereavement to be reclaimed. Writing memoir is one way we tend this soul.

The (re)presence of an absence is a leitmotif running throughout Snapshots In Memory Of Ben. This is the gripping story of one divorced Jewish family where the bechor, the older son, has died. His two remaining siblings, mother and father, must recover from the tragedy of their family’s loss.  The puer-senex (father-son) pattern frames the story narration, unfolding the memoir as if a rite of passage through a soul landscape in deep grief, excavating the memoir and scribing it in a kind of writ of passage to which the image title, “Snapshots,” alludes. Just as snapshots in a family photo album illuminate or re ‘tell’ lived stories, in a way that lets our deepest values held sacred in our imaginal life heal us, the telling style of Snapshots In Memory Of Ben reveals a powerful story of human love.

India Ink on Blank Pages

Collective Reflections, poetry By Merlina Davis

"From Jamaica’s north-coastal beauty, I found poetry in the balmy trade winds, the sound of waves lapping golden shores covered in cockle shells, and the gentle green hills fired with multi-coloured tropical blooms. Poetry has been an outlet for me.   I allow my pen to waltz across blank pages to will the pain away; pain and sense of loss I would otherwise internalize. Lonely in a crowded room, my muse becomes my companion in solitude. From the age of ten, I began writing of the sea, by the sea and on the sea. My uttermost desire in writing poetry is that my readers are able to relate. In so doing, I feel complete. Poetry has been and is my catharsis, which I extend, humbly for all to feel with sincerity."

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