Life Support: Invitation to Prayer

Through vignettes, drawings, and affirmations, Judith Margolis shares the story of her mother's illness, decline, and death, documenting her anxious concern and her father's turmoil. The book imitates a traditional Jewish prayer book, offering spiritual guidance and acknowledging the emotional complexities of family death.

Format: Hardback
Length: 96 pages
Publication date: 30 May 2019
Publisher: Pennsylvania State University Press

In this meditative, heart-wrenching, and unexpectedly comforting book, artist and essayist Judith Margolis weaves a poignant tapestry of her mother's illness, decline, and death through thoughtfully written vignettes, poignant drawings, and poetic, prayerful affirmations. As her mother battles a series of health crises and confronts the inevitable end of her life, Margolis documents her anxious concern and her father's turmoil while juggling the responsibilities of caregiving and her own distress. The resulting narrative, told with quiet intensity and candor, bears witness to contentious deliberations over medical decisions, the challenges of patient care, and the intricate dynamics of family. In this book, designed to imitate a traditional Jewish prayer book, Margolis reminds herself and others caring for a dying parent to "pray"—to seek clarity, to stay centered, to forgive oneself—as a way of acknowledging and embodying the turbulent emotions involved. Both the form of the book and Margolis's rendering of the traditions involved in a family death ground Life Support firmly in the Jewish experience, providing a spiritual layer to this honest, realistic narrative that all readers will find inspiring and relevant.

Life Support: Invitation to Prayer stands as a unique testament to the power of creative response to infirmity and meticulous documentation during times of personal loss, as well as a loving tribute to family, spirituality, and grief.

Weight: 184g
Dimension: 108 x 160 x 18 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780271083735