the dead son - 146

Little David was nine when he came to live with Big David and Kathy. He was accompanied by his older sister and younger brother. They came with the clothes on their backs. They also came with complicated and sometimes dark histories. Within a year all three children agreed to be adopted. To serve as parents, Kathy and Big David learned that children must be willing to be parented, and that was a struggle for this sibling trio. The older sister had served as the responsible one; she had kept them together. For her to give up that role she’d need to trust David and Kathy; that would be difficult. In the end, all three children would require community services ranging from psychological evaluation and counseling to legal interventions that included juvenile detention and, later, boarding school. Kathy—a social worker with a law degree (and later an M.Div.)—pegged David as the one most at risk of the three. It proved out. While the book tells parts of the stories of the other two children, Big David examines in-depth Little David’s story. In the process he had to dig through records he’d never seen before, had to file Freedom of Information Act requests for police and court records, had to ask for information from others who had worked with Little David as a child and then as an adult. David’s drift into alcoholism and his death were always possibilities, significant risks. When he died, he left a hole in the heart of the family. This story—with its reliance on school, police, and court documents, and court-ordered psychological evaluations—is a memoir, but of an unparalleled sort. It is intended for other families who may face the loss of a child, and for other adoptive families who have faced the same kinds of life and death choices that their children have made. In the end, it is a book about love.
ASIN: 0989410145
VSKU: BVV.0989410145.G
Condition: Good
Author/Artist:Schock, David B
Binding: Paperback