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In writing book about dealing with grief, local author discovers her father's gift of passage Date published: 5/8/2008 By Rob Hedelt WHEN writer Amy Hol-lingsworth was out promoting her best-selling "The Simple Faith of Mr. Rogers" in 2005, she was also coping with a sense of loss that threatened to overwhelm her. After losing a friend and father figure in the famous children's show host years earlier, the Spotsylvania County author lost her own father to cancer just months before the book came out. As she struggled to make sense of the grief, anger and more, she sought solace in the writings of others. She found a few sources that helped, but was distressed not to find something that addressed the process and gave her hope. Believing that writer's best topics are subjects near to the heart, Hollingsworth decided to write about losing her father, with an eye for discovering what legacies the dying leave behind. It was a gut-wrenching process that stretched out for more than a year. It included emotional sessions with local people who'd lost loved ones, and delivered a stirring discovery. Namely, that those we lose leave gifts behind that help us cope with their loss. In the 192-page "Gifts of Passage," available at major booksellers, the writer argues that these gifts have an otherworldly dimension. That's because they come when someone To reach that conclusion and others, Hollingsworth said it took talking to others to fully understand the gift her father had left her. "I was extremely close to my father," she said, the dutiful daughter who had maintained close ties to him through difficult times. "I wanted to write something that would help others deal with the sort of grief I was feeling," she said. "The book ended up being something I needed to write to help myself understand it all." To find the others whose experiences are chronicled, the author found many of her subjects from news accounts in this newspaper. The more people she talked to, including the mother of a local 9-year-old killed in a bicycle accident, the more she found evidence that those who leave us impart gifts that help us cope.
Date published: 5/8/2008
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