Surviving Ben's Suicide

As a thirty-five-year-old woman, C. Comfort Shields is haunted by the memory of her first true love's devastating suicide eighteen months after she met him at Sarah Lawrence College in New York. While searching for answers about Ben's death and her place in his life, she also begins her own personal journey of self-discovery. This symphonic memoir of life and death, love and anger, and guilt and forgiveness sways back and forth-in an extraordinarily candid narrative-from the love story of a nineteen-year-old to her reflections years later. She shares her insights into the survivor's complex as she learns to live, love, and trust again. As a mother, wife, and teacher, she realizes the profound influence she has in the lives of others but also knows that she cannot guarantee their future, as she could not control Ben's. Intimate and frank, "Surviving Ben's Suicide" follows Shields's passage through the stages of grief. Her story symbolizes how memories of the past and new life experiences are interwoven. The reality of surviving Ben's suicide was not glamorous, but she grew as a person and came out on the other side with a deeply satisfying life.