[Reading] ➶ Kadian Journal ➬ Thomas Harding – Natus-physiotherapy.co.uk In July 2012 Thomas Harding's fourteen year old son Kadian was killed in a bicycle accident Shortly afterwards Thomas began to write This book is the resultBeginning on the day of Kadian's death and c In July Thomas Harding's fourteen year old son Kadian was killed in a bicycle accident Shortly afterwards Thomas began to write This book is the resultBeginning on the day of Kadian's death and continuing to the year anniversary and beyond Kadian Journal is a record of grief in its rawest form and of a mind in shock and uestioning a strange new reality Interspersed within the journal are fragments of memory jewel bright everyday moments that slowly combine to form a biography of a lost son and a lost lifeIt is an extraordinary document and several things at once a lucid raw and startlingly brave book a powerful and moving account of a father's grief and a beautiful tribute to an exceptional son.
- Hardcover
- 256 pages
- Kadian Journal
- Thomas Harding
- English
- 14 November 2016 Thomas Harding
- 9780434023011
Harding's reflection on grief after his only son Kadian is killed in a freak cycling accident opens on that pivotal day The family are cycling in the Wiltshire countryside when he is killed; of witnessing the accident Harding writes 'He's suddenly way ahead of me A hundred feet perhaps He must have gathered speed And then there's a flash of a white van moving fast from left to right at the bottom of the slope It shouldn't be there And the van hits Kadian Driving him away from view away from me'Much of the memoir uses this choppy narrative style which works very well to describe the accident and its aftermath but is not so effective at other times For the most part Harding's prose is both heartfelt and very matter of fact; the latter made me feel rather detached from the whole It felt at times as though I was intruding upon somebody's personal diary which I had no right to read There was no real sense that Kadian Journal was meant for a general readership; it felt too raw in many ways Harding also uses rather a lot of repetition unnecessarily which I did find wearing after a while Kadian Journal is a nice tribute to a lost son but it did not always plunge the depths or the despair which I would have expected from such a book
Exuisite Goodness and sadness dance with each in this book I felt I knew the young man and his family so intimately by the end of the book and it expanded my understanding of both grief and family Glad I didn't let this one slip by
This is is the most personal and tragic of stories And while I shake when I tell the story I read Kadian Journal in 5 straight hours of tears and wonderment Thomas lets the wonder of his boy come through Thomas Harding sets a rare and high standard for writing The pain of the story is intertwined with the joy and originality of Kadian He reveals his own bereavement and hurt that is courageous in its honesty At the end what Thomas Harding says seems true it is a shared loss for the world is less without this magical boy It is a book that it felt unfair to keep in my own hands because the spirit of Kadian demands that we shoulder through this together and do what his sister insists from the start that we live life with meaning and purpose to respect the life of Kadian
So profoundly sad and beautiful; an important memoir about a father's grief
This is about my nephew my brother in law and my sister Very dear to my heart I love them so much and Thomas does an excellent job of telling their story Miss you Kadian Auntie Gayle
Phenomenal poignant and emotionally intelligent discourse on grief
Heartbreaking and yet wonderfully poetic A description of the pain of death and the eually painful process of healing Loss and hope intermingle in a dance that lasts a lifetime
Beautiful ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
A very sad emotional read If you want a good cry you should read this Kadian Journal is a tremendously heart breaking bereavement of Thomas Harding who lost his son in a bicycle accident he witnessed on 25 July 2012 The scores of pages are leaden with a riot of emotions that celebrate life mourn loss I found myself blurry eyed at many instances The love despair bitterness was all too profoundly expressed between father son the memories they shared togetherHarding writes The heartache will always be there I will have to learn to live my life with it to grow around it like a tree grows roots around a cold inert boulder always there always present Trulydeath steals everything but our stories Adela Winfield
An extraordinarily brave account of close personal familial grief from the perspective of the Father about the death of his own sonI was slightly daunted by the premise of the book but found the account and the style of writing so compelling I couldn't put it down It left me at times in tears of empathetic grief and other times with a broad smile of joy at recognising the progress and clarity of mind and purpose being described