A journey of healing from grief

ALL IN GOD’S TIME, MY SONS: Reflections on the Death of My Children, by Geoff Moeller. ireadiwrite Publishing. 2010. 141pp

Reviewed by Günther Simmermacher

From the moment their children are born, it is said, parents are perpetually hostage to fate. The thought of losing a child is unimaginable, and the pain of those who have impenetrable.

Geoff Moeller, a Canadian Catholic who lost two sons in a motor accident, provides a glimpse into that anguish and how a parent responds to it in this collection of poems and reflections.

All In God’s Time, My Sons charts Moeller’s journey of healing, with his family and Catholic faith at the centre. It is not an easy read; Moeller’s sense of loss for the boys he loved so deeply (and the paralysis of another) is almost unbearable to observe. The reader grieves with him.

Moeller’s life changed irrevocably on a Saturday morning — November 29, 2008 at 9am — when the car carrying his four sons, wife and other family members was struck from behind by an SUV. Andrew, 9, and Matthew, 6, died from injuries sustained in the crash, while son Karl (then 8) was paralysed.

The first poem in this collection was written before that, in early November 2008. He observes his boys sleeping, rejoicing in their being and asking God to safeguard their future. God had other plans.

A poem titled “falling on their caskets in my mind” captures the father’s absolute grief and simultaneous, angry surrender to God:

I cast my senses into flames
For I shall not use them here again
To touch, to hear, to smell their bodies […]
I cling to my cold, cold faith
And lay my tortured raging heart
Before Your altar of sacrifice
And the coffins of my sons.

In other poems, Moeller regrets lost opportunities with his boys; he’d gladly forgo the daily chores and tiredness if only Matthew was there, asking him to play.

Through Moeller’s poetry we observe the slow but steady process of acceptance and healing. After all the desperate rage, Moeller is touched by the tears of a stranger and finds ways of looking at pictures of his sons with gentleness rather than despair, or hear Andrew’s favourite song without breaking down.

Towards the end of the book, completed just 15 months after the accident, the focus of the poetry increasingly turns on the faith which helped the author to find his feet again, most poignantly with Moeller’s recourse to Our Lady — who, of course, lost a son herself.

Moeller does not claim to be an accomplish poet. The power of his verse resides not in technical dexterity but in raw emotion and self-revealing, unedited catharsis. For that, this is a powerful, faith-filled and ultimately hope-giving book.

• All In God’s Time, My Sons can be bought in digital format from www.ireadiwrite.com for US$4,99. A print edition is available at amazon.com. Geoff Moeller’s royalties are earmarked for charitable causes.