SearchWithin Book Review

Life With A Hole In It:
That's How The Light Gets In
by Vicki Woodyard

There is a beauty in surrender that can now begin to illustrate your inner "I." —Vicki Woodyard

Walk around the neighborhood with Vicki Woodyard until you arrive at Death's gate. Woodyard's Life With A Hole In It: That's How The Light Gets In is an intense personal story filled with grief, hope, humor, and...spiritual seeking and Finding. From the get-go, the reader quickly realizes that Vicki has experienced unimaginable lows, yet she manages to find hope and fortitude where most of us would falter.

When their daughter was just three years old, Vicki and her husband Bob learn that Laurie has been diagnosed with a fatal cancer. And as any parent might imagine, the ensuing battle becomes all-consuming as the family struggles to hold their lives together. Tragically, Laurie passed three years later at the age of seven, yet her spirit remains alive in the book in the form of memories of special moments.

Life eventually regains a sense of normalcy. Vicki slips back into the daily groove, caring for her son Rob and occasionally tending to spiritual seeds. But in another forlorn turn, Bob is diagnosed with fatal multiple myeloma over 20 years later. And that's where Vicki's life as a caretaker and spiritual seeker intertwine closely in a four-year struggle to cope with non-stop cancer treatments and Bob's deteriorating health. In the midst of it all, she gains strength from spiritual friends and teachers—though these teachers are cut from the most ordinary and genuine of cloths.

Amid adversity's blunt force, she stumbles on a bittersweet secret:

The paradox of pain is that in that dark night, the inner stars come out. These simple stars of sorrow are shining for a reason. There is a beauty in surrender that can now begin to illustrate your inner "I."

Vicki's past is steeped in the teachings of Vernon Howard, who also died of cancer. Thus, her book weaves the story of a spiritual seeker's calling to "find" Enlightenment, which perennially eludes capture and fades into an impossible dream. ("Who cared about Enlightenment when there were unmentionable sufferings in my life? Who cared?"). Ironically, it is life's afflictions that create crushing despair—and that despair ultimately blows a hole in the author that exposes the Great Silence within. For the spiritual seekers among us, you'll need to read between the lines, but those spaces betwixt carry a profound message.

Can humor possibly find a home among words of enduring pain? Undoubtedly.

I had cranked out one-liners for standup comedians for quite a while. The lowest pay I ever got was from Phyllis Diller. She bought a joke for one dollar, calling it B grade and then she used it on the Tonight Show. Go figure.

Life With a Hole in It is a story of suffering. Caretakers of the terminally ill will find solace in this book. Writers will appreciate the rich metaphors. And spiritual seekers will understand the potential for hope's arrival in the darkest hours. But the storyline doesn't end with a reader who is heartbroken. After turning the last page, I am reminded of a few passages from Lao Tsu in Tao Te Ching:

Surrender and become whole.
Bend low and be straightened.
Become empty and be filled.
Burn out and be renewed.

Life With A Hole In It: That's How The Light Gets In

Publisher: BookLocker

Paperback | ISBN: 978-1609102777 | 150 pp.

Ebook format available

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