Cardinal Feathers

'Cardinal Feathers: gifts from my son's life and death by suicide' is a very stark, honest and brutal look at mental illness, and its effects on children and adults. Written from the view point of a mother whose 16 year old son completed suicide, the book looks at the difficulty in accessing proper, timely and appropriate treatment. And again, from a mother's view, it looks, in depth, at what is too often the ultimate ending, suicide. Cardinal Feathers explores with a raw honesty and openness the devastation left behind after the act of suicide; the destruction, the grief, the pain, the hopelessness and helplessness. Most of all though, Cardinal Feathers is a story about how one mother chose to look for and accept the gifts left in the wake of the tragedy of her son's death. It is the story of how she chose to be open to these gifts, despite her pain. Cardinal Feathers is geared to families in similar situations; to youth who may be contemplating suicide; to youth who may know someone who is contemplating suicide; to service providers and mental health workers.to anyone who feels drawn to pick it up and read it. There are enough gifts for everyone.