It Rains in February: A Wife’s Memoir of Love and Loss by Leila Summers
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
It Rains in February, the story of author Leila Summers’ journey with a severely depressed husband intent on ending his life is a compelling story. In some ways I felt like I was on a speeding train headed for a certain crash ahead, but with no way off. And no way to stop the train.
Sometimes there is nothing we can do.
Through sharing her thoughts, feelings, hopes, struggles, and desperate actions along this fateful journey to try to save her husband’s life, Summers gives us all the great gift of a beam of light shed upon one of the most inconceivable tragedies anyone ever has to face—the loss of a loved one to suicide.
“Why did she do it?” “How could he possibly do it?” “I can’t believe she did it.” We all ask these questions when we hear someone has taken his or her own life.
After reading It Rains in February, you may not understand one thing more than you do today about suicide or the possibility of prevention. But you might gain a glimpse into the heart and soul of a tortured man and the helpless and hopelessness of a woman who loved him beyond reason, who made every valiant attempt to save him, and who, in the end, could only suffer the blow.
This book will stay with me a long time.
My gratitude to both Leila Summers and Robyn for her courage in telling the tale.
Christine M. Grote 