Life's that way : a memoir

A special book about the end of one life and the beginning of another. Life’s That Wayis a modern-day Book of Job. In August 2003, Jim Beaver, a character actor whom many know from the popular HBO series Deadwood, and his wife Cecily learned what they thought was the worst news possible— their daughter Maddie was autistic. Then six weeks later the roof fell in—Cecily was diagnosed with stage-four lung cancer. Jim immediately began writing a nightly e-mail as a way to keep more than one hundred family and friends up to date about Cecily’s condition. Soon four thousand people a day, from all around the world, were receiving them. Initially a cathartic exercise for Jim, the prose turned into an unforgettable journey for his readers. Cecily died four months after being diagnosed, but Jim continued the e-mails for a year after her diagnosis, revealing how he and Maddie coped with Cecily’s death and how they managed to move forward. Life’s That Wayis a compilation of those nightly e-mails. Jim’s experience is universal for anybody who has lost a loved one. But Life’s That Wayis not solely about loss. It is an immediate, day-by-day account of living through a nightmare but also of discovering the joy of a child, of being on the receiving end of unthinkable kindness, and of learning to navigate life anew. As Jim says, these are hard-won blessings. But then again, life’s that way.