Pine Melody: A Memoir

Swerving to avoid a deer on a dark Wisconsin highway in early summer, 22-year old Gabe lost control of the car. His 29-year old brother Jonah, singing along with him as he drove, absorbed the full force of the impact with an oncoming pick-up driven by the Chief of a First Nation. The crash left Jonah with severe traumatic brain injury, Gabe with a broken femur, and soil samples, meticulously gathered for Jonah's graduate research project on agroforestry, strewn across the highway.

As General Counsel for a Philadelphia medical center, I was competent enough to interact with my sons' care teams, but lost all semblance of professionalism when neither my legal expertise, search for a medical miracle nor tenacity of my love was able to bring benefit to Jonah. He lingered in a coma for three months before dying in hospice. I was left to find a way to carry on for the sake of Jonah's brothers while handling my own grief and helplessness.

Immersing myself in Jonah's journals and memories of his extraordinary, spirit-filled life, my pillars of support materialized--meditation, yoga, prayer and sailing. With Jonah as my spirit guide in the bard and beyond, I navigated pathways between terror and beauty that Jonah had spent his life seeking. Pine Melody is the result of my journey.