Sukey Forbes joined me Monday July 6th at 9:00am pst!

A Story of Love, Loss, and Life After Death

Sukey Forbes

Praise for THE ANGEL IN MY POCKET

If you missed Sukey Forbes on today's show, listen to our conversation here!



“Powerful, uplifting and fearless.”

—Chicago Tribune


“There is a unique and lovely energy underlying this book—one that stems from Forbes’s extended meditation on where Charlotte lands after her death. Forbes’s achievement in this book is that her engagement with ‘the other side’ is thoughtful and, yes, persuasive. Forbes has written a complex story of love and grief in which she comes to live with hope and faith.”

—Boston Globe


“Forbes turned to the wisdom of her ancestors . . . but it wasn’t until she took a friend’s advice to see a medium that she began to accept Charlotte’s passing as a form of spiritual transition and understand

the depth of her connection to the Emersonian part of her heritage.”

—Kirkus Reviews


“What do we do when the unthinkable happens? We have choices, of course. We can break, become tough, allow cynicism to seep into all our broken places. Or, as Sukey Forbes illustrates in this remarkable book, grief can kick the door wide open and let the light in. The Angel in My Pocket is a devastating and beautiful paean to the human spirit.”

—Dani Shapiro, bestselling author of Devotion, Still Writing, and Slow Motion


“If your life has ever come to a halt, if you have wondered how to want to live again, if you are looking for hope and longing for courage in the face of grief, if you seek staunch honesty and are keen to hear it from someone who knows firsthand that privilege does not protect you from pain, read this book and know that you are not alone.”
—Laura Munson, New York Times bestselling author of This is Not the Story You Think It Is

“How do we bear the unbearable? In this heartbreaking book, a bereaved mother offers
an unflinching account of the different ways we grieve and the different—and surprising—ways we may begin to heal.”
—George Howe Colt, author of The Big House


Now available in paperback, THE ANGEL IN MY POCKET: A Story of Love, Loss, and Life After Death, (Penguin; On sale May 19, 2015; 9780143127574; $16.00) by Sukey Forbes, is the profoundly moving and inspiring story of a mother’s unconventional path to healing after the death of her young daughter. Told with unflinching honesty and hard-won wisdom, Forbes’s memoir is a powerful story of one woman’s decision to embrace life in the face of tragic loss. With open-minded skepticism and a tenacious determination, Forbes seeks answers to questions such as “where did she go?” and “How do I go on?” Her story is a must read for anyone for whom life has taken a turn that left them unsure of how or even if they could move forward.

When Forbes lost her six-year-old daughter, to a rare genetic disorder, life as she knew it was shattered. She was aware that the true essence of what made Charlotte “Charlotte” had left her body. But where did it go? Surely all of this light and exuberance could not just cease when her heart stopped beating. Even as she was devastated by her loss, Forbes accepted that her own life was not over, and she searched for a way to both come toterms with this death and find her way back to a full, meaningful life. The door to both of these paths opened when Forbes found a prominent medium who helped her connect with Charlotte on the other side. With the medium’s help, Forbes found reassurance that Charlotte was not truly gone, but rather on a different part of the continuum of life and death. These experiences gave Forbes the comfort and peace she needed to march once more into life, aware of all it might hold in store for her. In the wake of their loss, she was determined not to just survive, but to thrive.


THE ANGEL IN MY POCKET details Forbes’s resilient journey from despair to a state of grace. Forbes’s family traditions played a strong, if contradictory, role in how she processed her daughter’s death. As the descendant of two of New England’s oldest and most distinguished families (one of which includes Ralph Waldo Emerson, her great-great-great grandfather), Forbes was raised in a rarefied world of privilege that valued emotional reserve and strict self-reliance. There was also, however, a widespread belief in ghosts—especially those that haunt Naushon Island, a 6,000-acre family property off Cape Cod that has remained largely unchanged since its purchase by her family in 1843. The island is filled with history, artifacts, and the visible presence of departed ancestors. With the customary guarded skepticism that defined much of her WASP upbringing, Forbes’s launches into explorations of mediums, religions, science, and philosophy balanced with sitting quietly and listening to the “wise silence” within to find meaning.

Forbes found further kinship with the philosophies of Ralph Waldo Emerson, whose son—like Charlotte—died at the age of six. Buoyed by the revelation that her family was as spiritually eccentric as it was stoic and reserved, Forbes became determined to break through her conditioned responses and embrace the complexities of her heritage.

THE ANGEL IN MY POCKET is an empowering and enlightening story that provides hope to the reader. It is one woman’s complicated and uncommon route to embracing the gifts of loss along with the sorrow. Forbes is heir to a lost American spiritual tradition that allowed her to look optimistically at life in the face of death. Like The Still Point of the Turning World and Proof of Heaven, Forbes’s story offers hope and help to anyone who is grieving the loss of a loved one or whose life has taken a turn that left them unsure of how or even if they could move forward.


About the Author
Sukey Forbes is the founder and president of an art and collectibles company and a blogger for The Huffington Post. The Angel in My Pocket is her first book. She lectures on positive grief and embracing life after loss. She has been interviewed and/or featured on ABC, WGBH, NPR, LA Talk Radio, Open to Hope, Worth Magazine, Boston Magazine and eHarmony (partial list). She and her family split their time between Boston, MA, and San Francisco, CA. Please visit the author on the web at, http://sukeyforbes.com/ https://twitter.com/sukeyforbes

David Perlmutter, MD, FACN, ABIHM, author of the #1 New York Times Bestseller Grain Brain joined me Monday at 9:00am pst!

Great show today with Dr. David Perlmutter! If you missed our conversation, listen here.

Dr. Perlmutter is a Board-Certified Neurologist and Fellow of the American College of Nutrition who received his MD degree from the University of Miami School of Medicine, where he was awarded the Leonard G. Rowntree Research Award. He has published extensively in peer-reviewed scientific journals including Archives of Neurology, the Journal of Neurosurgery, and The Journal of Applied Nutrition, and is a frequent lecturer at symposia sponsored by such medical institutions as Columbia University, Scripps Institute, New York University, and Harvard University. He serves as Associate
Professor at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine.



Dr. Perlmutter has been interviewed on many nationally syndicated television programs, including 20/20, Larry King Live, Fox & Friends, The Today Show, Oprah, The Dr. Oz Show, and The CBS Early Show, and on CNN and Fox News. He is the recipient of the Linus Pauling Award for his innovative approaches to neurological disorders and in addition was awarded the Denham Harman Award for his pioneering work in the application of free radical science to clinical medicine. He is the recipient of the 2006 National Nutritional Foods Association Clinician of the Year Award and was awarded the Humanitarian of the Year award from the American College of Nutrition in 2010.

Dr. Perlmutter is the author of seven books, including the #1 New York Times bestseller Grain Brain: The Surprising Truth About Wheat, Carbs and Sugar—Your Brain’s Silent Killers, now published in 27 countries.

Find out more on: http://www.drperlmutter.com/

President of Beyond Health International, Raymond Francis, an author of numerous health and wellness books joins me Monday at 9:30am pst!

Great show today featuring special guest Raymond Francis! If you missed our conversation, listen to the show here.

Raymond Francis was at the height of an international consulting career when his health began declining rapidly. What began as chemical sensitivities and allergic reactions to almost everything ended up as chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, lupus, Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, Sjogren’s syndrome, digestive problems, skin rashes, headaches, brain fog, dizziness, and ultimately liver failure. At age 48, his imminent death was considered a medical certainty. “There is nothing more we can do for you,” his doctors said.

Believing that the medical interventions had only made things worse, Raymond decided it was up to him to bring himself back to health. A chemist by training and a graduate of M.I.T., he began taking large doses of vitamin C, which revived him enough to conduct extensive research and direct his own care. It took him two years to fully restore his health. During this period he developed his revolutionary Beyond Health Model, a theory of health and disease that is so simple it can be taught to a child, yet is so powerful that many have cured themselves of terminal cancer relying on its truths.

Now 78, Raymond enjoys an extraordinary level of health. In the 28 years since his recovery, he has not taken any medications or had any surgeries, and he has not been sick except for three minor colds. He is on a mission to reach as many people as possible with the message that you don’t have to get sick, that “health is a choice.” He has written five books, Never Be Sick Again, Never Be Fat Again, Never Fear Cancer Again, Never Feel Old Again and his newest book The Great American Health Hoax. Raymond has addressed health conferences all over the U.S. and in eight other countries and has made over 2,000 television and radio appearances. He is president of Beyond Health International, a supplier of health-supporting products and advanced health education.

http://www.raymondfrancisauthor.com/

Photographer and author Bill Aron joined me Monday June 8th at 9:00am pst! We'll talk about his latest book, "New Beginnings: The Triumphs of 120 Cancer Survivors" and so much more!

Great show today chatting with special guest Bill Aron! If you missed our conversation, listen to the show here.

From Bill Aron.com

From my first images of the Lower East Side of New York in 1974, I have never wavered from my commitment to depict Jewish Life in America and in Israel. I have therefore come to be known as the “Dean” of American Jewish photographers.

I first gained international recognition for my photographs of Jewish communities of the former Soviet Union, Cuba, Jerusalem, New York and Los Angeles. A book highlighting these works, From the Corners of the Earth, was published, with an introduction by Chaim Potok, by The Jewish Publication Society. A small selection of this work can be seen online at From the Corners of the Earth.

My next project immersed me in Jewish life in the deep south of this country: Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Mississippi. Shalom Y’all: Images of Jewish Life in the American South, was published, with an introduction by Alfred Uhry, by Algonquin Books. Please see the Shalom Y'All web page more details.

In 2004, The Rodgers Center for Holocaust Education at Chapman University commissioned me to produce for their library 100 portraits of Holocaust Survivors in Southern California, entitledHolocaust Survivors: The Indestructible Spirit.

My most recent exhibition, panoramas of urban life in Israel, involved stitching together as many as 20 images into one photograph. These photographs have thus far been exhibited at the Art Center in Herzliya, Israel, in December of 2011, the Pucker Gallery in Boston in the spring, 2012, and the 92nd Street Y in New York City in the fall of 2012. The catalog for this exhibition can be viewed online at the Pucker Gallery.

For my newest project, I deviated from Jewish themes to interview and photograph cancer survivors whose diagnosis has turned into a positive force. Its tentative title is New Beginnings: Surviving Cancer – 100 Stories. A Spring, 2015, publication is planned.

For most of my career, since 1976, the Pucker Gallery in Boston has represented my photography.

I received my first camera at age 12 (I won it at Steel Pier in Atlantic City at the roulette wheel). It was a modest device, a Brownie Hawkeye, but it did spark something within me that led to a life long love of photography. I wanted to capture the world in front of me, and make that scene into a lasting image.

All my life I’ve been interested in how people present themselves and interact with each other, including with the camera. This site contains representative samples of the various projects I have done, personal as well as editorial and commercial. My exhibitions and stock photography are also included. Feel free to let me know what you think.