Life's That Way
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4.7 • 28 Ratings
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- $14.99
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
A remarkable memoir that shows the capacity of the human heart to heal after the challenge of having to say goodbye.
Even the hardest lessons contain great gifts.
Jim Beaver and his wife Cecily Adams appeared to have it all-following years of fertility treatments, they were finally parents and they were building their dream home and successful Hollywood careers. Life was good. But then their daughter, Maddie, was diagnosed as autistic. Weeks later, Cecily, a non-smoker, was diagnosed with Stage IV lung cancer. Sadly, after 14 years of marriage, Jim became a widower and a single dad.
Faced with overwhelming grief, Jim reached out to family and friends by writing a nightly email-a habit he established when Cecily was first diagnosed. Initially a cathartic exercise for Jim, the prose became an unforgettable journey for his readers. Life's That Way is a compilation of those profound, compelling emails.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Beaver, an actor, playwright and film historian, collects a series of riveting, heartfelt e-mails chronicling the courageous cancer battle of his beloved wife, Cecily, from her diagnosis of lung cancer to her death in little over a year. Unafraid to examine their life together and his acting career as a performer on two popular TV dramas, the role of Ellsworth on Deadwood and Bobby Singer on Supernatural, he kept family and friends informed with his nightly online messages of Cecily's deteriorating status and the bittersweet childhood of their autistic daughter, Maddie. The revealing e-mails depict the somber travail of Beaver on the horrific death watch of his wife, and detail the roller-coaster ride of emotion from hoping for a speedy halt to the disease's onslaught to experiencing the dark abyss of loss. After the death of his father during this time, he writes: "This year of writing has freed me from the shackles I don't know I could have borne otherwise." While this cancer memoir often chills the reader to the core with pain and frustration, it offers countless reasons to cheer Beaver as a remarkable man, a loving husband and a responsible single parent.
Customer Reviews
Loving, caring
I loved reading your book about your loving and beautiful wife and little girl Maddie. I have to say that this is the 3rd time that I have read your book and all I see and feel in reading it is so much love for all of the people that was there the whole time the ups and the downs 💯❤️ 🙏
Life's that way
A tweet by JB said he had written a book. I bought it, started reading, became a fan of Cecily and Maddie as well of Jim. This journal was of raw emotion. My heart ached reading Cec's struggle. I felt like I was there with the Beaver family. Jim took his reader to the highest highs and the lowest lows of life. I worked with autistic children and early intervention is the key to help children with neurological differences. Your Bobby Singer character was so complex with love, resilience and family. I hate that you and your family experienced such pain, but I am not surprised you three(Sam, Dean & Bobby) felt so real. May you never experience such loss again in your life.
Amazing strength
I bought this not only because I'm a fan of his from Supernatural but I needed to be reminded of what I have - wife and kids - and what it meant to be strong.
This is an amazing emotional journey from a man that I would be honored to have had as a father.