Life Support (Hardcover)

Judith Cohen Margolis

ISBN 10: 0271083735 / ISBN 13: 9780271083735

Published by Pennsylvania State University Press, University Park, 2019

About this Item

Hardcover. In this meditative, heartbreaking, and unexpectedly comforting book, artist and essayist Judith Margolis tells the story of her mothers illness, decline, and death through thoughtfully written vignettes, poignant drawings, and poetic, prayerful affirmations.As her mother fights a series of health crises and faces the end of her life, Margolis documents her anxious concern and her fathers turmoil while juggling responsibilities and her own distress. The resulting narrative, told with quiet intensity and candor, bears witness to contentious deliberations over medical decisions, the difficulties of patient care, and the complicated 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 praypray for clarity, pray to stay centered, pray to forgive oneselfas a way of acknowledging and embodying the turbulent emotions involved. Both the form of the book and Margoliss 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 is a unique testimony to the power of creative response to infirmity and careful documentation during times of personal loss, as well as a loving tribute to family, spirituality, and grief. Through drawings, paintings, and poetic, prayerful affirmations grounded firmly in the Jewish experience, the author offers a creative response to her mothers final illness and death. Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability.

Seller Inventory # 9780271083735

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Life Support (Hardcover)
• Publisher: Pennsylvania State University Press, University Park
• Publication Date: 2019
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0271083735
• ISBN 13: 9780271083735
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: new

About this title

Synopsis

In this meditative, heartbreaking, and unexpectedly comforting book, artist and essayist Judith Margolis tells the story of her mother’s illness, decline, and death through thoughtfully written vignettes, poignant drawings, and poetic, prayerful affirmations.

As her mother fights a series of health crises and faces the end of her life, Margolis documents her anxious concern and her father’s turmoil while juggling responsibilities and her own distress. The resulting narrative, told with quiet intensity and candor, bears witness to contentious deliberations over medical decisions, the difficulties of patient care, and the complicated 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”―pray for clarity, pray to stay centered, pray 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 is a unique testimony to the power of creative response to infirmity and careful documentation during times of personal loss, as well as a loving tribute to family, spirituality, and grief.

About the Author

Judith Margolis is the art editor of נשים / NASHIM, Journal of Jewish Women’s Studies and Gender Issues, cocurator of Women of the Book, an international visual Torah midrash project, and creative director of Bright Idea Books.