What do you think?
Rate this book
Stations of the Heart: Parting with a Son
This poignant love story of a father for his son is at once funny, heartbreaking, and hopeful . In it a young man teaches his entire family “a new way to die” with wit, candor, and, always, remarkable grace. This emotionally riveting account probes the heart without sentimentality or self-pity.
As the book opens, Richard Lischer’s son, Adam, calls to tell his father, a professor of divinity at Duke University, that his cancer has returned. Adam is a smart, charismatic young man with a promising law career, and an unlikely candidate for tragedy. That his young wife is pregnant with their first child makes the disease’s return all the more devastating. Despite the crushing magnitude of his diagnosis and the cruel course of the illness , Adam’s growing weakness evokes in him an unexpected strength.
This is the story of one last summer and the young man who lived it as honestly and faithfully as possible. We meet Adam in many phases of his growing up, but always through the narrow lens of his undying hope, when in the final season of his life he becomes his family’s (and his father’s) spiritual leader. Honest in its every dimension, Stations of the Heart is an unforgettable book about life and death and the terrible blessing of saying good-bye.
As the book opens, Richard Lischer’s son, Adam, calls to tell his father, a professor of divinity at Duke University, that his cancer has returned. Adam is a smart, charismatic young man with a promising law career, and an unlikely candidate for tragedy. That his young wife is pregnant with their first child makes the disease’s return all the more devastating. Despite the crushing magnitude of his diagnosis and the cruel course of the illness , Adam’s growing weakness evokes in him an unexpected strength.
This is the story of one last summer and the young man who lived it as honestly and faithfully as possible. We meet Adam in many phases of his growing up, but always through the narrow lens of his undying hope, when in the final season of his life he becomes his family’s (and his father’s) spiritual leader. Honest in its every dimension, Stations of the Heart is an unforgettable book about life and death and the terrible blessing of saying good-bye.
272 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2013
24 people are currently reading
895 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 64 reviews
February 14, 2024
“What we had taken to be a temporary unpleasantness had now burrowed deep into the family pulp and was gnawing us from the inside out.” Like all life writing, the bereavement memoir has two tasks: to bear witness and to make meaning. From a distance that just happens to be Mary Karr’s prescribed seven years, Lischer opens by looking back on the day when his 33-year-old son Adam called to tell him that his melanoma, successfully treated the year before, was back. Tests revealed that the cancer’s metastases were everywhere, including in his brain, and were “innumerable,” a word that haunted Lischer and his wife, their daughter, and Adam’s wife, who was pregnant with their first child.
The next few months were a Calvary of sorts, and Lischer, an emeritus professor at Duke Divinity School, draws deliberate parallels with the biblical and liturgical preparations for Good Friday that feel appropriate for this Ash Wednesday. Lischer had no problem with Adam’s late-life conversion from Protestantism to Catholicism, whose rites he followed with great piety in his final summer. He traces Adam and Jenny’s daily routines as well as his own helpless attendance at hospital appointments. Doped up on painkillers, Adam attended one last Father’s Day baseball game with him; one last Fourth of July picnic. Everyone so desperately wanted him to keep going long enough to meet his baby girl. To think that she is now a young woman and has opened all the presents Adam bought to leave behind for her first 18 birthdays.
The facts of the story are heartbreaking enough, but Lischer’s prose is a perfect match: stately, resolute and weighted with spiritual allusion, yet never morose. He approaches the documenting of his son’s too-short life with a sense of sacred duty: “I have acquired a new responsibility: I have become the interpreter of his death. God, I must do a better job. … I kissed his head and thanked him for being my son. I promised him then that his death would not ruin my life.” This memoir brought back so much about my brother-in-law’s death from brain cancer in 2015, from the “TEAM [ADAM/GARNET]” T-shirts to Adam’s sister’s remark, “I never dreamed this would be our family’s story.” We’re not alone.
Originally published on my blog, Bookish Beck.
The next few months were a Calvary of sorts, and Lischer, an emeritus professor at Duke Divinity School, draws deliberate parallels with the biblical and liturgical preparations for Good Friday that feel appropriate for this Ash Wednesday. Lischer had no problem with Adam’s late-life conversion from Protestantism to Catholicism, whose rites he followed with great piety in his final summer. He traces Adam and Jenny’s daily routines as well as his own helpless attendance at hospital appointments. Doped up on painkillers, Adam attended one last Father’s Day baseball game with him; one last Fourth of July picnic. Everyone so desperately wanted him to keep going long enough to meet his baby girl. To think that she is now a young woman and has opened all the presents Adam bought to leave behind for her first 18 birthdays.
The facts of the story are heartbreaking enough, but Lischer’s prose is a perfect match: stately, resolute and weighted with spiritual allusion, yet never morose. He approaches the documenting of his son’s too-short life with a sense of sacred duty: “I have acquired a new responsibility: I have become the interpreter of his death. God, I must do a better job. … I kissed his head and thanked him for being my son. I promised him then that his death would not ruin my life.” This memoir brought back so much about my brother-in-law’s death from brain cancer in 2015, from the “TEAM [ADAM/GARNET]” T-shirts to Adam’s sister’s remark, “I never dreamed this would be our family’s story.” We’re not alone.
Originally published on my blog, Bookish Beck.
July 4, 2013
Last week I serendipitously opened the facebook page of Anne Lamott and there was her list of "twenty books I've read and loved." Number one was Tatoos on the Heart -- that marvelous inspiring memoir by Father Boyle, missioner to gang-involved teens in South Central Los Angeles. Number two was a book I'd never heard of: Stations of the Heart by Richard Lischer. I went and found the book.
What a treasure! The author, a professor of divinity at Duke University, tells of his son's life and of his death of cancer at age 33. A heartbreaking story but told with hope, humor, and a deep sense of peace. The author does not pretend that things were easy and he readily admits that "I was losing my ability to pray...; it was an emptiness so complete that I couldn't remember what it was to be full." He faces the hard questions with courage and openness, and in the end learns from his son. After his son's death, Lischer works through deep grief,"a series of dark caves of despair" into which he repeatedly falls.
Every page of this book glows with love and care. This is a beautiful book, a love story of father and son, a testimony to faith in spite of doubt.
What a treasure! The author, a professor of divinity at Duke University, tells of his son's life and of his death of cancer at age 33. A heartbreaking story but told with hope, humor, and a deep sense of peace. The author does not pretend that things were easy and he readily admits that "I was losing my ability to pray...; it was an emptiness so complete that I couldn't remember what it was to be full." He faces the hard questions with courage and openness, and in the end learns from his son. After his son's death, Lischer works through deep grief,"a series of dark caves of despair" into which he repeatedly falls.
Every page of this book glows with love and care. This is a beautiful book, a love story of father and son, a testimony to faith in spite of doubt.
May 12, 2014
Mid-semester, when I'm swamped with student memoirs about rotten childhoods and wretched bouts with cancer, the last thing I want to read before bedtime is another memoir about suffering. But then occasionally the best antidote to memoirs-in-process is an exceptional completed memoir which transcends suffering with its grace and artistry. Richard Lischer's STATIONS OF THE HEART does exactly this. Lischer is a theology professor who knows what faith looks like on the ground, in the lives of a loving family losing a member too young. I wish more theologically astute academics had Lischer's humility, and willingness to test his beliefs against life's bitter and glorious moments.
That night I momentarily lost my fear of hope, which is nothing other than the fear of death, and remembered again the Bible’s quaint promise, “Hope maketh not ashamed.”
--Richard Lischer, Stations of the Heart, 126
Believers often give God an excused absence by referring to his “transcendence,” as if it were a condition, like rheumatism, which would explain why he seems so feeble and remote from our lives: God is so far above us that we can’t relate to him nor he to us. But there is another kind of transcendence, based not on distance but convergence, which cancels out the traditional metaphor and ushers God into the world of homeless shelters, prison cells, cancer wards, and the human heart itself. God is so transcendently Close we cannot see him, and so woven into the fiber of things that he remains hidden, like the key that is “lost” in plain view. In the Beatitudes, Jesus offers a clue to God’s whereabouts in the world: look for God in the poor, the persecuted, the dying, and those who mourn.
--Richard Lischer, Stations of the Heart, 230
That night I momentarily lost my fear of hope, which is nothing other than the fear of death, and remembered again the Bible’s quaint promise, “Hope maketh not ashamed.”
--Richard Lischer, Stations of the Heart, 126
Believers often give God an excused absence by referring to his “transcendence,” as if it were a condition, like rheumatism, which would explain why he seems so feeble and remote from our lives: God is so far above us that we can’t relate to him nor he to us. But there is another kind of transcendence, based not on distance but convergence, which cancels out the traditional metaphor and ushers God into the world of homeless shelters, prison cells, cancer wards, and the human heart itself. God is so transcendently Close we cannot see him, and so woven into the fiber of things that he remains hidden, like the key that is “lost” in plain view. In the Beatitudes, Jesus offers a clue to God’s whereabouts in the world: look for God in the poor, the persecuted, the dying, and those who mourn.
--Richard Lischer, Stations of the Heart, 230
January 17, 2023
I really enjoyed this and found myself crying multiple times as I read through the devastation of losing a family member. A look into how to die well.
March 5, 2015
The three stars I gave this book are more representative of me than of the book. I am not a dummy when it comes to spiritual/religious things but admit to being woefully inadequate in understand not only the faith and practice of Catholics but also Lutherans. I understood what was going on but only is a very superficial way; I feel it is my lack that gave this book only 3 stars. It is a lovely book, which is a strange reaction to a book that is about such a horrible event. So what I am left to feel is the powerful love that Lischer so ably works into his narrative. Having been at the bedside of two people in hospice care, I can only wish that I had read this book before those two events happened. Do understand that those three stars do not mean just an average book; they speak to my inadequacy rather than the author's words.
June 30, 2013
I loved this. Dr. Lischer was one of my seminary professors, and I have admired and respected him for a long time. This honest narrative of his son Adam's illness and death, and the grief wrapped up in the whole series of events, is wrenching and hopeful at the same time. Lischer takes us back to Adam's baptism as an infant and forces us to consider what it really means to entrust our children to God. This could not have been an easy story to write, but I am grateful that he did. By sharing his own story, Dr. Lischer helps us put the major losses of our own lives into the context of faith and discipleship.
March 11, 2014
This is a well written, emotional documentary of a father's experience of his son's all-too-early death. The author's (and his son's) spiritual base is the foundation upon which he writes--some might not like the religious theme, but it does not detract from the poetic writing and deeply felt tragedy and loss. All the while, Lischer invites us to join him in making sense, paying honor and learning to grieve. It is a journey worth the time. There is laughter, there are stories to remember, there is a fully formed young man who makes his death his journey. Beautiful.
September 19, 2013
The author plays off of Stations of the Cross, something any Catholic can understand. The journey through cancer via heart based paths and his son's acceptance of Catholicism, is heart wrenching at times. This book pointed out that being a Christian can be an incredible place.
March 30, 2015
The heart-wrenching story of how the family of a Lutheran divine who teaches at Duke University's Divinity School copes with the death of his young son, who succumbs to cancer in his 30s just nine days before his daughter is born. Beautifully written.
April 9, 2013
Gorgeous book - both heartbreaking and hopeful. I think this is a must read for anyone in pastoral care.
January 14, 2014
Death, where is your sting?
It is there and it hardly ever lets up in the death of one's own child, as Lischer shows both by his words and his silences in this powerful, honest, and unrelenting book.
It is there and it hardly ever lets up in the death of one's own child, as Lischer shows both by his words and his silences in this powerful, honest, and unrelenting book.
Read
August 18, 2015Wonderful, seamless story of the death of Richard's son.
March 27, 2023
I wept. Real tears. But don't be put off of this absorbing book by a father/theologian as he journeys with his beloved, promising and accomplished son through a battle with cancer. The bright lights of hospital corridors, the antiseptic beige of the chemotherapy room familiar to so many of us-thankfully the juice dispensing clown was not, the moment when loved ones on such a journey ask one another "we are really here." That recognition came to me not in my mother's cancer battle but in the onslaught of her dementia ten years later. Richard Lischer's journey with his beloved Adam is a shared human story, peppered with the appreciated insight of a trained man of the cloth with a knowledge of the minds of writers from Merton to Sontag. And there are the Psalms. You will love Adam and his family. Like me you may weep. Not, as one acquaintance put it, for his victimhood, but for his witness.
May 28, 2020
Chapters from Stations of the Heart were assigned for a church history class on death, grief, and consolation in my last semester of seminary. I am so glad I did not just borrow this book from the library or skip it. I read the remainder of the book tonight. Stations of the Heart is the moving, true story of a Duke theologian & professor as he processes his son, Adam’s, death in light of Adam’s life of kindness and faith and sickness and healing, a life of working out his baptism. This story is beautiful and tragic and so, so human. "We are never so full of love for one another that we don’t need to share a meal, and we are never so full of God that we don't need him to feed us with bread and wine."
November 30, 2017
The story was poignant and a good read. There are many memorable quotes spoken from experience. One of my favorites was:
"Along with “moving on” or “turning the page,” “closure” tops the hit parade of clichés oppressing the bereaved. “Closure” paves over the craters and cankers in the gap; it locks doors that, for the time being, should be left ajar. In our case, not only would closure suppress honest feelings of grief, but it would deny the love that made grief possible in the first place."
"Along with “moving on” or “turning the page,” “closure” tops the hit parade of clichés oppressing the bereaved. “Closure” paves over the craters and cankers in the gap; it locks doors that, for the time being, should be left ajar. In our case, not only would closure suppress honest feelings of grief, but it would deny the love that made grief possible in the first place."
December 20, 2019
A deeply moving book.... I literally wept through parts of it... Having a son of my own, this journey through loss and life was deeply moving. A reminder to 'Carpe child' to twist Robin Williams words. It was also a poignant reminder that in the midst of darkness, the crucifed Christ on the cross is the one place we receive comfort in our time of need.
It was also a call to allow the life of God to flow through us to those we love.
It was also a call to allow the life of God to flow through us to those we love.
January 28, 2025
"It occurs to me that I have acquired a new responsibility. I have become the interpreter of his death. God, I must do a better job."page 238
Lischer did a profound job of writing about his son Adam's life and death. I am overwhelmed with knowing how to write my review. This is a faith-filled book with a reminder that we will all die. Lischer wrote with love of his son but I am thinking what a gift this book is and will be to the daughter that was born nine days after his son's death.
Lischer did a profound job of writing about his son Adam's life and death. I am overwhelmed with knowing how to write my review. This is a faith-filled book with a reminder that we will all die. Lischer wrote with love of his son but I am thinking what a gift this book is and will be to the daughter that was born nine days after his son's death.
November 3, 2019
The love a father has for his son is very evident. This is an honest and bittersweet sharing of the experience of losing a child. The raw details of the journey of grief takes courage to share so transparently. It's hard to judge someone else's experience and my thoughts on their writings, so I'll just skip that and say that I appreciated their insight and willingness to share.
December 27, 2020
An extraordinary writer on losing an amazing son
Lischer writes with an open heart and enables is to explore every crevasse of that heart as we learn of the tragedy befalling a remarkable young man and his family.
God and religion play a huge supporting role in this book, but we never lose sight of the people.
Highly recommended
Lischer writes with an open heart and enables is to explore every crevasse of that heart as we learn of the tragedy befalling a remarkable young man and his family.
God and religion play a huge supporting role in this book, but we never lose sight of the people.
Highly recommended
March 3, 2025
God keeps the gap open between us and those we love. There is no filling with inspiring thoughts or false diversions. He heals in the darkness and chaos. Closure suppresses honest feelings of grief and denies the love that made grief possible at all.
Quite close to 5 stars.
Quite close to 5 stars.
September 2, 2017
A tender and loving portrait of a son, Lischer has a knack for reflecting and making meaning out of dying, death, and grief.
August 5, 2018
A very spiritual book that is beautifully written. It was very powerful, and moved me deeply. Plan to have tissues handy.
May 9, 2020
Beautifully written book from a father's perspective of his son's life and being there through end of life care and the aftermath of death of his son. It will make you cry and think.
November 28, 2020
Beautiful, powerful memoir of Duke theology professor and the dying process of his 33 year old son.
July 21, 2013
Oh my - what a beautifully written gift of a book this is. I wept several times as I read it. Perhaps because I am a son - perhaps because I am a father (one of whose sons had a brain tumor). His story of his son’s last bout with cancer and his navigation of that land - family, hospital, faith, church gave me a lot to think about. It is the type of book that leads one to think - not just with the mind, but with the whole person. I’m so very glad I read it. I hope it will continue my journey to be a better human being - and a better pastor.
September 19, 2015
Lovely personal book about faith, love, and the death of a young man to cancer. Sad, but necessary. Even if you are not Christian, this book is heartwarming and accessible.
I read Dr. Lischer's earlier memoir, set thirty or so years earlier. I found it reassuring that his writer's voice remained familiar to me, even after so many years of change in his life. It is one of the qualities of the soul that some part of a person is constant, even with the changes to style and emotional presentation that come with life experience.
I read Dr. Lischer's earlier memoir, set thirty or so years earlier. I found it reassuring that his writer's voice remained familiar to me, even after so many years of change in his life. It is one of the qualities of the soul that some part of a person is constant, even with the changes to style and emotional presentation that come with life experience.
September 18, 2013
I don't think this is a book for everyone but I found it beautiful and felt honored to be let into the author's heart and life as he reflects back on the journey he went through with his son. They seem like an amazing family. I wondered before I read it if it would be like Blue Nights by Joan Didion (which I didn't like at all) but it wasn't - I found this one to be much more reflective and outward looking.
September 27, 2013
I also found this book by way of Anne Lamott. I think it was a short list of some of her favorites in a magazine I was reading. Far and away the most touching look at a relationship between a father and a son and a father and his unborn daughter. It reminded me of Death Be Not Proud in many ways, but Lischer's gift for describing his pain and grief were more relatable to me than the older classic. I highly recommend this one.
September 17, 2014
I'm not sure I can give this justice in a review, having just finished it, but I'm worried that if I don't write something now I'll never know how to start. This book is good because it has so much truth in it. There's honesty, and vulnerability.
I also believe it says true things about where faith is when we face death, and especially a death like the one their family faced. If you can handle it, I believe everyone should read this book.
June 26, 2016
Beautifully written, heart-wrenching story of how a father lets go of his son. The sacred look at life and death, at religion and community's attempts to support the family during the transition, and at the love between parent and child known and unknown makes this book a tough but worthwhile read.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 64 reviews