When Colleen and Mike Curzon, a young Mormon couple, lost their first baby at eight months old, it rocked their world. Even worse was to learn that his disease, a rare genetic immune deficiency called hyper-IgM syndrome, could occur in future sons. But the doctors said there was a treatment, so they felt hopeful. Yet twenty-four years later, after having eight more talented children, Colleen and Mike were told that their sixteen-year-old son had terminal cancer.
In God Shall Wipe Away All Tears, author and mother Colleen Curzon Openshaw shares her and her familys true-life experiences with illness and death.From blindness, cancer, Alzheimers and widowhood to happy times, church missions, and new loveher story will pull at your heartstrings and strengthen faith. At once a chronicle of tragic loss and the struggle of parenthood, Colleens story contains beautiful and comforting messages from beyond the grave, and four decades of her and her familys journals, which will offer hope and encouragement to any who have experienced such loss.
Being a caregiver can be difficult and traumatic, but it can also be a blessing. For Colleen, her life as a caretaker and mother is a collage of powerful experiences all wrapped into one true story. Through the tears and smiles, join her in discovering a renewed hope and faith.
God Shall Wipe Away All Tears is a fascinating look into the life of a courageous woman who suffered unimaginable personal tragedies. Readers will find insight, inspiration and strength from Colleens faith-based perspective on confronting difficult life problems. To those who have a loved one with an immunodeficiency, her story will show that you are not alone. Her no-nonsense chronology sheds light on a very rare medical condition.
Ulrike Ziegner, M.D., PhD., Allergist/Immunologist
Thank you for your wonderful book! Your insight into life and death, and your terrible experiences from which you have learned patience and understanding, will help us all to become better people.
Paula Bjornn, Registered Nurse
It was dusk as my husband and I entered the small cemetery to place flowers on the three gravesJonathan, our firstborn son who died at eight months from a rare pneumonia; Michael, our violinist son who left us at age sixteen due to pancreatic cancer; and Seth, a loving son who trained hawks and suffered blindness and neurodegeneration after thirty years of immunodeficiency. As the sun set with crimson colors, I placed bright summer flowers on each grave. Help me to do what I should do with my life, I said to my sons. It was clear what my path should be. I could not let their lives be lost in vain! I should write their stories of struggle, love, and faith. They are doing their work now in heavenly spheres, and I must do mine while I still have time! I said to myself. It all seemed so clear.
This powerful memoir describing Colleen Openshaws frequent encounters with illness and death will convey important insights when we experience these unwanted sorrows in our own lives. Losing her parents to cancer and old age, a sister in a car accident, her husband to organ failure and Alzheimers, as well as her three precious sons to hyper-IgM syndromehas given Colleen unusual understanding in facing end-of-life issues. Relying on her faith in God as well as her own grit and determination, her experiences can give us a unique comprehension of how to confront these inevitable trials common to all mankind.
