I needed perspective.  I knew even before I found it, but it was just out of reach.

I needed something real.  That is exactly what I found. 

I’m not sure what it was about the book that made me grab it off the shelf, but I’m glad I it found it’s way into my hands.  A few pages in and it had done the job.

Signs of Life is a memoir that begins with Natalie Taylor finding out that her husband has died.  She’s 24 years old and five months pregnant.  And she chronicles, in beautiful honesty, her journey through the deepest grief of losing true love and the contrasting joy of becoming a mom.  

We hear bad news every day.  It is all around us, permeating our lives from every direction.  But this story touched me in a different way.  Because it is a tragedy completely within the realm of possibility for me.  If I gave myself time to linger on it, it would probably be my biggest fear.  Getting everything I ever wanted and then losing the person I was supposed to share it all with. 

Her story is interwoven with the new insights she’s gained into great works of literature, as well as her changed view on everyday life, relationships and herself.  The things that make the story inspiring are the little things.  She says repeatedly that there is no resolution to loss.  But her story shows that there is hope.  At the very darkest, in the very worst moments of a person’s life, it might be hidden, but as the days pass, it comes out, little by little.  There are signs of life.