Little Matches - A Memoir of Finding Light in the Dark by Maryanne O'Hara
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Web ID: 17693401A beautiful novel with many lessons!
Maryanne talks about navigating grief, accepting signs, and the strength of our love for one another. She teaches us that it's ok to grieve just as immensely as we love -- with our whole hearts, with hope, and with shared memories at the forefront of our minds. This book provides us with a renewed sense of what it means to live fully, to love fully, and to honor the memories and teachings of those who are no longer physically with us but who's presence long remains.
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Little Matches
How I live and love, have been changed by the author’s narrative. What a beautiful tribute to a difficult journey, filled with so much light and love. I stayed awake for hours, compelled to keep reading, although I knew the story. Days later, I keep picking up the book and rereading sections. This is a truly gorgeous memoir.
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Little Matches
Can you imagine your child being diagnosed with a chronic, life shortening illness at the tender age of 2? This is what this author faced with her only child, Caitlin. This story chronicles the life of Caitlin and her family as they navigate the medical challenges faced due to a diagnosis of Cystic Fibrosis. This book shares the story of this family by presenting emails, journal entries, and text messages. This book reminds one to hold onto life, because it is precious. This is a thought provoking read for all, especially for parents also navigating medical illness and chronic medical conditions with their own child. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the advance review copy in exchange for my honest review.
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Cystic Fibrosis
Part Memoir, Part Spirituality, this book is written by Caitlin's Mom. Caitlin was diagnosed with Cystic Fibrosis at the age of 2. From a medical perspective as an RRT who worked in a CF Center. all medical information was spot on. For me it was an inspirational insight to the family, primarily the Mom on have a child with this disease. There also was spiritual streams on consciousness as to what happens when one dies. It was an uplifting story under a difficult situation. Thanks to NetGalley, the author and publisher for allowing me to read and review this book.
Customer review from barnesandnoble.com
Gut-wrenching, emotional yet incredibly inspiring
Thank you to #NetGalley, the author, and the publisher for providing me with a digital copy of this book prior to publication in exchange for my honest review. Little Matches: A Memoir of Grief and Light by Maryanne O'Hara is a memoir about the death of her adult daughter, Caitlin. It is a gut wrenching, emotional, yet ultimately inspiring book. Caitlin was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis when she was only two years old and she managed to battle this disease until she died when she was thirty-three years old. In the intervening thirty-one years we see Caitlin living with the uncertainty of a disease that could take her life at any moment. As much as possible she continued to go to school, travel and live in the moment while she could, keeping the pain that she was going through hidden from just about everyone she knew. It is a wonderful full of love and devotion. O'Hara was there to comfort Caitlin throughout her life and even after her death, Caitlin continues to be a comforting presence in her mother's life. It is definitely worth reading.
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Customer review from barnesandnoble.com
great story
I enjoyed this memoir book. This is a story about a mother who loses her adult child and the connection between life and death. This is an interesting book that was easy to read. It is an emotional story about a mother who wanted to cry for through most of the book. I enjoyed watching her search for a soul and her growth throughout the book. This is a great story that I am happy I picked up and I think you would enjoy it too. This is a new author for me and I look forward to seeing what is next for her. I highly recommend this book.
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Customer review from barnesandnoble.com
Memoir
LITTLE MATCHES-Maryanne O'Hara The book is well written and is basically a memoir of Mrs. O'Hara and her daughter Caitlin. Diagnosed at two years old with cystic fibrosis opened a world that the parents nor the child, Caitlin. ever anticipated. Many years of Caitlin's life were somewhat uneventful other than a cold or flu that held on too long. Cystic fibrosis is a genetic disease that builds mucus around and in organs causing many infections, diabetes, chronic illnesses and other health issues. It is not curable at this time but great advances have been made since Caitlin's diagnosis. Caitlin, as she grew was questioning and was anger about her limitations. However, she developed a tenacious spirit. The challenges a chronically ill child/family face on a daily basis are monumental. The language and understanding of CF was helpful and there are many questions and avenues to explore in treating this disease. The book is a memoir written by Mom but drawn also from Caitlin's journals. covering the communication struggles, and relationship between Mother and daughter as well as the medical challenges. I chose this book because I lost a sweet young friend, 26, to cystic fibrous in 2009. Reading the book gave me much more insight into all her family's life time of struggles. My sweet friend was a Christ follower which made the loss hopeful. We know she is with God until the day we all are reunited. The book was well written, honest, informative and helpful to me personally.
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Customer review from barnesandnoble.com
Transcendent and Captivating
What happens when your only child dies of a tragic genetic disease and you're left to grapple with the meaning of life? This is the overarching question that plaques novelist Maryanne O'Hara as she makes sense of the senseless loss of her adult daughter, Caitlin, following a near-lifelong battle of cystic fibrosis (CF) in her forthcoming memoir, LITTLE MATCHES (HarperOne, April 20 2021). Immediately, I was enthralled with the deep well of questions this wise writer posits to the reader: Where is she? Is she? Is there more to life than this life? Does consciousness survive death? Does my existence have any purpose? Does anyone's? Of course, death is the only certainty in life and while that's ironic (and a bit glib), there is so much life that happens in that interstitial space. This is why I think I love LITTLE MATCHES. Maryanne and her husband, Nick, lose their only child--Caitlin--when she is 33 years old. For thirty-one of those years, they cared for a daughter who was diagnosed with CF. They were told she would live a long life or die in a matter of months. LITTLE MATCHES is at once a medical memoir about CF, but also it's a mother-daughter memoir about life and love. But there's more here, too, breathing in the spaces of context are so many metaphysical, existential questions and quandaries, symbolism, coincidences, more. I found LITTLE MATCHES to be wholly inviting, authentic, raw, and told with an intimate candor. O'Hara is a wise and powerful storyteller, a strong mother, and so much more. This is a tough read, with a heartbreakingly expected mid-point yet a profound and meaningful outcome. Cobbled together in bits and pieces of blog entries, Caitlin's journals, lists, drawings, song titles, more, LITTLE MATCHES is a slightly meandering narrative in which O'Hara consults medical research and mediums so that she may better understand the complexity of her role in her daughter's life, her death, and to make meaning of her purpose. In the end, O'Hara becomes an end-of-life death doula so that she may better help others as they let go of this earth, but also to assist those who are left in their wake. I was reminded, in part, of the work of Brian Weiss but also Raymond Moody's LIFE AFTER LIFE, Eben Alexander's PROOF OF HEAVEN, and other like-minded books. It's also a medical memoir, so in the vein of Heather Harpham's HAPPINESS.
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