Very few people get through life without suffering loss.
For author Cathy Sosnowsky, the almost unbearable loss in her life has been the death of her son, Alex, a few days after his 17th birthday in 1992.
Living in West Vancouver at the time of Alex’s death, Sosnowsky says she survived by writing poems about her beloved son, words she compiled in a 2001 book called Holding On – Poems For Alex.
Sosnowsky weathered her initial sorrow by joining the Compassionate Friends, a group for bereaved parents who have lost a child, and one for which she is now international liaison.
At first, she says, “I couldn’t even speak, I could just sob.”
Once Sosnowsky managed to become a regular, she discovered her membership in Alcoholics Anonymous had helped her share her feelings.
But that’s what she left out when she wrote the first draft of her gripping memoir, Snapshots: A Story of Love, Loss and Life.
Sosnowsky gave proofs to two friends who were editors and writers themselves.
“They said the narrator, the main character is missing,” she says, noting it took longer to rewrite the book than the original draft. It was published in 2011.
“I’d come to one of the dreadful chapters and I’d have to put it away for a while,” she says. “Then again, doing the second version, I had a little distance because I was trying to do it in a literary way and I had taught literature for many years.”
The result is an honest, let-it-all-hang-out account of Sosnowky’s life as a wife to husband Woldy and mother to Alex, and Michael and Tanya, two emotionally damaged children the couple adopted when Alex was eight.
Brutally open about her experiences and feelings, Sosnowsky says she wanted an honest book.
“I don’t like sentiment,” she says briskly, softening as she notes her immediate reaction to the mention of Alex, 20 years later, is melancholy.
The former B.C. director of Compassionate Friends, who edited the newsletter and was chapter leader in North Vancouver, now gives workshops on writing towards healing.
She says there are at least 50 chapters of the Compassionate Friends in Canada, with groups in some 22 countries worldwide.
Sosnowsky is interested in starting a local chapter to the area and has already met with two newly bereaved mothers.
She says she has received a warm welcome since coming to Salmon Arm where her husband is a minister at St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church.
Sosnowsky has joined the Shuswap Writers group and the Journal Club.
Meet Sosnowsky when she hosts a booksigning from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday, March 31 at Bookingham Palace in the Mall at Piccadilly. At 2, Sosnowsky will adjourn to the library, where she will read from her book and answer questions.
