Life and Death

            Life and death seems to be a common topic in books, TV shows and movies these days. People seem to love it too. The books Heaven is for Real, Beach Road and Joni: An Unforgettable Story all have this common thread of life and death.

            Joni: An Unforgettable Story is the story of Joni Eareckson's life changing experience. A diving accident in 1967 left Joni Eareckson, then 17, a quad­riplegic in a wheelchair, without the use of her hands. After two years of rehabilitation, she emerged with new skills and a fresh determination to help others in similar situations. During her rehabilitation, Joni spent long months learning how to paint with a brush between her teeth. When Eareckson writes, "Who, or What, is God? Certainly not a personal Being who cares for individuals, I reasoned. What's the use of believing when your prayers fall on deaf ears?" (Eareckson 93), it is clear that she is questioning her faith. Then she begins thinking about the meaning of life. She asks, "If there isn't a personal God who cares about me, then what's the use? Why not just commit suicide? In fact, why doesn't the whole human race commit suicide if life has no meaning?" (Eareckson 94, 95). At that point we know just how the accident has affected her view on life. There is more evidence of her questioning life when she states, “Life without eternal forces, without God, led to despair. I could see this but didn’t know what else to believe. Had not God, if there was a God, turned His back on me?” (Eareckson 96). A little over a week later Joni prays:

“God I have just two choices: either You exist or You don’t. If You don’t exist, then I don’t see any logical reason for living. If people who believe are only going through motions that means nothing, I want to know. Why should we go on fooling ourselves? Life is absurd most of the time. And it seems man’s only end is despair. What can I do, Lord? I want to believe, but I have nothing to hang on to. God, You’ve got to prove Your existence to me!” (97)

We now learn that she wants to believe and has hope that there is a God, but she wants God to prove he exists to her. Joni Eareckson gains her faith back and is now a well-known Christian author, radio host, speaker, and founder of Joni and Friends.

            Todd Burpo’s Heaven is for Real is the story of his son Colton’s extraordinary trip to heaven and back. When Colton was not yet four years old he told his parents he had left his body during the emergency appendectomy surgery. He told them an authenticated claim by describing exactly what his parents were doing while he was being operated on. He talked of visiting heaven and relayed stories that were told to him by people he met there whom he had never met in life. He also astonished his parents with descriptions and obscure details about heaven that matched the Bible exactly, though he had not yet learned to read. Todd realizes that his son has been to heaven when he states,

“Suddenly I realized that up until that point, I’d been toying with the idea that maybe Colton had had some sort of divine visitation. Maybe Jesus and the angels had appeared to him in the hospital. I’d heard of similar phenomena many times when people were as near death as Colton had been. Now it was dawning on me that not only was my son saying he had left his body; he was saying he had left the hospital!” (Burpo 63, 64)

Colton had this incredible experience and found answers to questions lots of people have about heaven.

The Beach Road by James Patterson is centered on life and death. This book is about Tom Dunleavy an attorney in East Hampton. He is defending his childhood friend Dante Halleyville who is arrested for a triple murder of three local teens. We learn about the triple murder when it states, "Then, almost immediately, another shock. The bodies aren't lying side by side. They're stacked, one on top of the other, in a heap. Feif is in the middle on his back. Robert Walco is lying on top of him facedown, and Rochie is on the bottom turned on his side" (Patterson 43). That lets the reader know just how bad the murder was. Dante hires Tom to defend him. He states, “Clarence, I haven’t been in a courtroom in over a year. Even then I was nothing special. That’s because you never tried, Tom. Not like you did playing ball. Put your mind to it, I believe you can do anything well. Folks like you. They listen to you” (Patterson 127). Tom decides to accept Dante’s offer. Tom hires Kate, a well-known Manhattan lawyer, to help him with the case. Kate replies, “I want to help you defend Dante Halleyville” (Patterson 175). Tom and Kate win the court case. If you don’t want to know the ending skip to the last paragraph. In the end the real murderer is Tom. Tom gets sent to prison where he is later murdered by other inmates who know that Tom was Dante’s attorney.

Life and death were in the middle of all three books and of many more books too. people seem to be loving the life and death theme since books, TV shows and movies keep coming out with that topic.