A dauntless memoir about leaning into life after grief, Finding New Life after the Death of My Son is moving in its examinations of life, death, and faith. Foreword Magazine , Clarion Reviews   Bodnarczuk writes with touching precision... As he stares down the hardest questions of all-why?-the pages pulse with a real spiritual struggle, described with rare frankness and clarity, worked through by a thinker who never professes to have all of the answers but whose hard-won insights, in the end, will offer comfort to other believers facing losses that might seem unendurable. Publisher's Weekly , BookLife Reviews Finding New Life After the Death of My Son , is a story of anguish, confusion, and the struggle to find meaning in a world that seems irrevocably altered. Yet, amidst the pain, Bodnarczuk illuminates the transformative power of love, resilience, and hope, inspiring us with his courage. Midwest Book Review This is every parent's worst nightmare. You go to wake up your eighteen-year-old son on Sunday morning for church and you find him dead in his bed. Only later do you learn he bought a single Xanax pill on Snapchat for fifteen dollars to calm his anxiety about the COVID-19 pandemic. He took the pill then ordered food from Door Dash, but he never lived to eat it. It was a counterfeit pill that contained over three times the lethal dose of fentanyl - that one pill killed him. Mark Bodnarczuk's heart-wrenching memoir begins just hours into his process of mourning the tragic death of his teenage son. With indelible sincerity and penetrating detail, Bodnarczuk shares the intimate details of his grief, inviting readers into his moments of anguish, confusion, forgiveness, hope, and transformation. If you allow Mark to be the docent, he'll lead you on a journey down into the depths of grief and pain that plagued his soul, and then back up through his process of finding new life and a deeper sense of meaning after the death of his son. This heart-wrenching memoir begins just hours into a bereaved father's journey as he mourns the tragic death of his teenage son. Bodnarczuk shares the intimate details of his grief, inviting us into his moments of anguish, confusion, forgiveness, hope, and transformation. This deeply honest account illustrates that the more personally a story is told, the more universally it resonates. Mark provides wisdom and resources to help all of us navigate the complexities of our unique journey. His profound insights about faith and doubt, psychology and theology, mystery and paradox challenge all of us to be more curious and alert to ourselves, God, and the people around us. Be prepared to have your heart softened, your mind stretched, and your soul awakened. - Reverend Jane Filkin, director of Leadership Development & Spiritual Formation, the Campolo Center for Ministry of Eastern University There is no burden like the burden a parent carries, and there is no hurt like the searing pain of a parent who loses a beloved child. It is strange that we have words like 'orphan' and 'widower' for those who lose a parent or a spouse, but there is no word for those who suffer what has been called 'the unspeakable loss.' Mark Bodnarczuk puts words to it, that can help and accompany and provoke and counsel those who have suffered that loss or walk alongside others that do. He is deeply informed by the writings of Scripture, and the work of Carl Jung, as well as by an active and widely-read mind. He is also remarkably open about the loss and torment and slowly-forming hope that are a part of such loss; the (perhaps always partly formed) knowledge that one has survived the loss of one's child. This is also a story of profound faith, which does not know or claim all the answers but knows somehow that letting go is not the answer. It is a pre-emptive answer to any who are tempted to say to the problem of sufferers, "Why don't you just get over it?" It is a story of remarkable forgiveness, not least of all the forgiveness of the man who sold the fentanyl-laced substance that took the life of the beloved son. It is the journey from what Mark called the "Grieving me" to the "Grieving-and-Rejoicing me"; a world where the man of sorrows is the same who lived so that 'my joy might be in you.' This is a deeply human, deeply sorrowful, deeply-layered, deeply spiritual book which will be a pain-accompanying gift to any who read. - John Ortberg, M.Div., Ph.D., and author, Soul Keeping and Faith & Doubt As a grieving father, Mark Bodnarczuk invites us to follow his psychologically profound journey down to the depths of despair and then back up to a new sense of life's return and transformation. Following his son, Thomas's, death from fentanyl poisoning, Mark has been challenged in every way - emotionally, relationally, and at his deepest core, psychologically and spiritually. We are privileged to experience a Dante-like journey down to the deepest levels of the psyche, through Mark's eyes. H