Leaving the Hall Light On

Leaving the Hall Light On is about living after loss. It's about finding peace and balance and various ways the author, Madeline Sharples, finds to bring herself together after feeling so helpless and out of control during her son Paul's 7-year struggle with bipolar disease and after his suicide in September 1999.The author's book shares several aspects of her son's illness and how she and her husband, and their other son, Ben, survived Paul's suicide, as it: 1) describes the frustration, anger, and guilt of trying to care for an adult child with mental illness2) gives mothers and fathers who have experienced a child's death ways to get out of the deep dark hole they are in, 3) tells people the realities of mental illness, 4) describes the steps Sharples took in living with this loss; the first and foremost that she chose to liveand go on with life and take care of herself as a woman, wife, mother, writer, and 5) shows readers that grief is love in action. To let ourselves grieve is to feel the depth of our love for as long as it takes. For those of us whose children have died, that may take the rest of our lives, but we will discover the gifts of our loss in the process.