Judith Boivin's contemplative memoir, Gift of the Japanese Red Maple, elucidates her journey through grief, loss and guilt after her youngest son's suicide. Boivin uses writing as the self-prescribed treatment for processing her son's death as well as deep wounds haunting her from an earlier divorce. She probes and sifts through memories and experiences that ultimately lead to birthing a vibrant, self directed woman secure in her uniqueness and energized by life itself. Her formal education as a registered nurse, licensed clinical social worker and mental health provider adds credibility to her story, a must-read for anyone wanting to transform the traumatic loss of a loved one, especially a child, into new growth.
About the Author: Born into a Catholic family at the end of WW II, 4th of 6 children, I grew up in a secure and safe home. A brother, born 2 years before me, died from pneumonia and measles. Since experiencing the loss of my youngest child, I know the indelible mark left on my spirit. Healing and growth has significantly changed my family's lives. I now understand how it was for my parents. I wrote to make sense of my son's death, as well as the divorce of 11 years prior to his death. For over thirty years of my life I kept a daily journal; as child a diary that I sporadically wrote in; after marriage it was a vital part of my life, an exercise that served to keep me in balance. My emotional life is a force that demands expression. Halfway through the sixth decade of my life, I'm ready to call myself an adult and believe I have wisdom to share with others, if asked. I became a registered nurse in 1965 and 27 years later completed a Master's degree in social work. My clinical experience spans 20 years. Yet, my formal education pales in comparison to the inner journey that has actualized me. I subscribe to the theory of humanistic and phenomenological psychology that Carl Rogers introduced in the late fifties: human beings exist in a continually changing world of experience, of which they are the center. To me this means that our perceptions are uniquely defined through nature (genes) as well as environment. The only thing that is certain is change, I enjoy helping individuals to discover their core self and to act from that core if or when it is genuinely correct for them to do so. After nine years of solo psychotherapy practice, I closed my office in the Atlanta area and moved with my husband to Belize, where together we established an Outreach Center for HIV positive children. The center provided medical attention, proper nutrition and early childhood education. Several months after returning from Belize I accepted a six month volunteer position with Doctors without Borders, MSF (Medicines sans Frontiers) in Abkhazia where I counseled drug resistant TB patients. Upon returning to the U.S. in 2007 I resumed my psychotherapy practice on an "as needed" basis. Currently I'm studying to be an Human Design Analyst and writing. Presently I live with my husband of twenty years, in the mountains of Southeastern Tennessee, a few hours from Atlanta. Our blended family consists of six children and eleven grandchildren scattered around the United States; one lives in France.