RARE BIRD

When Anna Whiston-Donaldson’s beloved son Jack was eleven years old he drowned in a flooded creek, not 100 feet from home. For Anna and her family, the days, weeks and months following Jack’s tragic death would be the hardest of their lives. Not only would Anna struggle with the terrible pain of losing a child, but the accident would test the one thing that had always been her strength – her faith in God.

Jack was a sweet-tempered, intelligent boy on the cusp of teenager-hood. He had a great relationship with his parents and his sister. Until one rain-drenched day at the end of a long and happy summer when Jack ran off to play with neighborhood friends … and never returned. As Anna and her husband and their neighbors desperately try to find him, Anna must deal with the loss of hope and the crashing realization that she will never see her son, in this life, again.

But as Anna and her family try to come to terms with their seemingly insurmountable grief, they begin to find hope and signs in the most unexpected places; from the bible verse Jack chose as his own personal motto, to the strange occurrences at their final beach holiday before the accident. Eventually, Anna and her family realize that not only does God have a plan for them, but Jack, their rare bird, will never be far from home.

Anna unfolds her story with telling detail, beautiful evocations of love and longing, and the power of a woman who has not only survived the unimaginable but returned to make her testament of hope--that after all, nothing can separate a mother from her child.