Travels through loss and hope

Three years ago, Amy Welborn was a popular Catholic writer in the United States going through a move to Alabama when her life was suddenly changed. Her husband Michael died suddenly of a heart attack while exercising at the gym. He was only 50.

Five months after his death, she decided to go to Sicily with three of her children to work out her grief, and how it affected her faith.

Last month, she released the book Wish You Were Here: Travels Through Loss and Hope which explores her thoughts, feelings, and prayers during this journey.

“It’s my life during that period, so it has everything that was in my life during that period,” she said. “It has grief it has travel it has faith, and questions about faith. I am hoping that anybody who is interested in any of those things - who has been touched or drawn to think about any of those issues or any of those matters - might be interested in it.”

She told Vatican Radio everyone struggles with the idea of death, whether it is that of loved ones, or their own mortality.

“I think everybody thinks about these questions that I struggled with during that period all the time,” she said. “On the faith level, we struggle with the tension between the here-and-now and what we hope for in eternity. That was my constant struggle during those months, trying to figure that out and trying to figure out the role and the place of people, and the beauty of creation, and how we experience life on earth with the promise of eternal life.”

Listen to the full interview by Charles Collins with Amy Welborn: