Pastor writes book about grief

Life

Related Photos

Anthony Weber, back row, right, with his mother and father, Susan and Leon Weber, his wife, Sheila, and sons AJ, front row, right, and Braden, at a 2001 family reunion the year after Leon was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Special to the Record-Eagle
Anthony Weber's new book, "Learning to Jump Again: A Memoir of Grief and Hope."

October 8, 2011

By MARTA HEPLER DRAHOS, mdrahos@record-eagle.com ---- The Record Eagle Wed Feb 22, 2012, 01:14 PM EST

TRAVERSE CITY — In a world increasingly full of absentee fathers and men stuck in suspended adolescence, Anthony Weber's father was neither.

"Leon Weber was a good man and a good father and I loved him," says Weber, in his book, "Learning to Jump Again: A Memoir of Grief and Hope." (WestBow Press, a division of Thomas Nelson Publishing, $13.95).

The book is both a tribute to Weber's father and an account of Weber's seven-year journey "through the valleys and shadows" following his father's death. It takes the form of a journal Weber began as an outlet for his emotions.

The story begins in 2000, when Leon Weber was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. As his father battled at his home near Columbus, Ohio, Weber remained insulated from the day-to-day realities of the disease and its effects by distance and filters.

"My mom and sister would try and give me positive updates but I didn't dig deep," said Weber, youth and teaching pastor at Church of the Living God and a "biblical perspectives" instructor at Spring Arbor University in Traverse City.

When he visited his father, Weber was shocked at the ravages the disease had wrought. Still, he said, "I had a hard time looking him in the eye. I knew he was dying and I didn't want to watch."

When his father finally died in 2003, Weber was overcome with grief.

"I was not doing well," he recalled. "I was very close to my dad. I was not prepared for the upheaval."

He began to keep a journal, writing in it on bad days, late at night, after his children were in bed. Much later, after sharing the journal with his wife, Sheila, he began to post it on Facebook, an entry at a time.

"I'd never heard anyone talk about the struggles I had." he said. "There may have been books, but I didn't read them."

The response, he said, was "overwhelming." Many who posted talked about their own struggles with grief. Others encouraged him to put the journal entries in book form. Many of their comments appear in boxes on its pages.

"It's meant to be read in an interactive form," said Weber, who hopes that the book can be helpful in starting others who grieve on a path to freedom and healing.

Traverse City-based author and school and church speaker Gary Bauer said he was struck by Weber's "honesty of the grieving process."

"A lot of times people try to hold it all together because they think that's what they're supposed to do," Bauer said. "Anthony's not afraid to write about what he's feeling and questioning."

For Weber that included regrets about not having talked with his father about his impending death.

"I wish we treated death and sickness more openly," he said. "Most non-Western cultures don't try to move past death as quickly as we do. As a culture we try to avoid it as long as possible, then when it comes we dismiss it as quickly as we can. What else in life do we want to dismiss as quickly as death, except taxes?"

Weber said he published the book with funds from his mother and considers it the eulogy he was unable to give. He dedicated it to his father and to "all of us who long to see our fathers again."

"At his funeral I didn't get up and say anything, mostly because I was in no shape to, but also because I didn't think I could tell his life story in a few minutes," he said.

While grief is intensely personal, Webers said he now believes there are certain key elements in getting through it.

"I think there's four things that form us. There's a spiritual side, a relationship or social side, a physical side and a mental side. You want to find a way to address them all in some way to get a well-rounded journey," he said.

For Weber, that meant getting in touch with his faith, coming out of his shell and engaging others again, and working out at a fitness center to help soothe his mind and body.

"Things do settle down, time does heal," he said.