Walking in the Shadow of the Son

Tom Griffiths was born in Wednesbury, West Midlands, in 1938. A chorister at St Bartholomew's, he attended the local grammar school. After qualifying as an accountant and company secretary, Tom pursued a career in industry. He married Pat Douglass at St Bart's in 1960 and they had three sons, David, Richard and Jonathon. They still reside in the West Midlands. Tom Griffiths was emotionally shattered by the death of his sixteen year-old son, Richard, who died after a car accident. The shock and sense of loss he felt caused such emotional turmoil that it culminated in a black-out or sleep-walking 'accident' in a neighbour's house shortly before Richard's funeral. Consequently, Tom was in hospital when Richard was laid to rest. This book contains writings by Richard, recorded in his diary and school magazine, as well as by Tom. Readers will see that Richard was a thinker with a pronounced political and social awareness, a true child of his times, but one who was also very much in tune with the interests of his own generation. Richard loved rock music and he wrote lyrics for songs with meaning. He believed in world peace and was passionately concerned about cruelty to animals, land mines and similar issues. Tom Griffiths, understandably, had great difficulty coming to terms with the loss of his beloved son and, therefore, he set out on a quest to find greater truth in life through his belief in God and the scriptures. The work involved in writing the book, recording his emotional trauma, asking questions of his faith and reconciling his thoughts on the human condition through correspondence with theologians and others, represented a cathartic exercise which helped him to deal with his enduring grief. Those people who have also suffered bereavement will find the contents of his book helpful in dealing with life after the loss of a loved one. Readers who ask questions of life, regardless beliefs, religious, agnostic or atheistic, will find much of interest in this work because of its inherent truths and will almost certainly be touched by the essentially human story that underlies the philosophy.