Reaching for Beautiful: A Memoir of Loving and Losing a Wild Child

Author Sally McQuillen shares her heart-wrenching journey of losing her son, Chris, in a canoeing accident, just days after Christmas. When the call came in that he and his other high school friends were missing after a night at a Wisconsin lake house, Sally and her husband initially dismissed it as a prank. Then something inside Sally warns her that this wasn’t another one of her “wild child” mischievous antics. Her lifetime of fear, stemming from her childhood, that something was wrong, wasn’t unfounded. The canoe had overturned, and the four friends succumbed in the dark, frigid water.

The book takes us back in time, sharing Sally’s journey of hardships and her struggle to find her way through to love, ultimately building a family.

She eloquently shares her grief through memories and the steps she takes to try to cope with losing her son. This includes stepping away from her job as an addiction counselor, embracing therapy, a retreat to California, and even meeting with a medium who offers some enlightening and astonishing revelations. 

I’ve read a lot of memoirs and can honestly say this one is captivating. You deeply feel for Sally, of course, but you also get the opportunity to celebrate life through her eyes and the joy she experienced as a mother. This depth of love and acuity enables her to see the effects of Chris’s loss on her husband and two young children, who experience it in very different ways. To help, she redirects the energy fueling her tug-of-war between grief and guilt into courage, eventually moving forward to help others as a grief educator. Inspirational! But through this entire journey, she senses her son walking alongside her, shining a light when she needs one and inviting her to understand how fear is not serving her when life is too precious to waste. 

This is a must-read for all who’ve loved and lost and for all who love. 

Book and Image Courtesy of PR By the Book and She Writes Press