By sharing his very personal experience with his father's death, Jim Wooten also examines the myriad ways suicide affects survivors. The first part of the book tries to remember the young, charming man, looked up to by his 10 year old son and the small Southern town of Laurens, SC. Before his every memory will be colored by the way he dies. The author does his best to be honest and even handed but you can feel the love and pride the young boy felt for this man, and how more than 50 years later the "suicide's son" is still asking why.
A shorter part of the book deals briefly with nine questions the author and many survivors grapple with. They include,
Was I not Enough? The Question of Worth
What Could I have Done? The Question of Guilt
What Should They Have Done? The Question of Blame
Shall We Talk About It? The question of Shame
Bitter or Better, the Question of God
Atonement? The Question of Eternity
Is It Contagious? The Question of Fear
What If? The Question of Acceptance
Dr. Wooten is a pastor and you can see his pastor's heart in the way he recalls his father and mother, and himself. He is compassionate with each of them. And this is a book with no easy answers or platitudes. If the first part is a story of loss and struggle, the second part is a story of struggle and hope.