Kathryn Cunningham: Walking Through the Valley of the Shadow of Death

Kathryn Cunningham joins us to discuss an experience that changed her life forever and how it led to a book about heartbreak, healing, and hope. Do not miss this interview and  her beautiful new book: Walking Through the Valley of the Shadow of Death.

Buy Kathryn's book:
https://www.amazon.com/Walking-through-Valley-Shadow-Death/dp/1462147186/

Learn more about Kathryn:
https://kathryncunninghamauthor.com

Learn more about Jason:
http://www.jasonfwright.com

About the book:
On February 6, 2023, Kathryn Cunnigham’s eight-year-old son, Dallin, fell from a slide at school and hit his head on the frozen ground. On the evening of the next day, his soul slipped quietly through the veil. 

Walking through the Valley of the Shadow of Death is Kathryn’s account of what filled those two days: the sorrow, the tears, the decisions, and most importantly, the miracles that came before and after. It is a witness of the awful inevitability of death, that mountain that looms over this valley of mortality. It is a testimony of the loving mercy of our Savior Jesus Christ, the only one who can warm and guide us when that mountain’s oppressive shadow darkens our path. In the days of Kathryn’s deepest distress, she tested the words of our prophet that we should seek and expect miracles and found they were true.

This story will help you see miracles in your own life, losses, and strengthen your testimony of the truthfulness of the plan of salvation.

This podcast is brought to you by InkVeins, your source for book publicity, promo, press releases and more. Text 540-212-4095 for more information.

Transcript

Speaker 1 0:01

Welcome my friends to the Book Drop Mic brought to you by your friends at Inc Banes. We are your source for book publicity, promotions and press releases, and this is, of course, jason Wright. How are you? Thank you for tuning into this episode. Don't forget, please, please, we've worked so hard for so long, please don't forget.

Speaker 1 0:22

This card of Coda, my middle grade novel, is finally out. You can pick it up at Amazon, barnes, noble, in all the formats audio, e-book, hardcover, et cetera. We hope that you will appreciate what has been a long journey to get this novel from me to my own imprint, inkveined Publishing, and to you. So we hope that you and your kiddos enjoy it. All right, look, folks, I've been looking forward to today's interview for a long time. Some of the guests that I interview I don't know a whole lot about them or their project prior to booking the interviews, but this one I've known about for quite some time and I have been looking forward to the opportunity to finally have this discussion and dive into something that can be a little bit tough to talk about, and we'll get there in a minute. The book is called Walking Through the Valley of the Shadow of Death. It is such a beautiful and somehow heartbreaking title at the same time. The author is the lovely Katherine Cunningham. Katherine, how are you?

Speaker 2 1:31

I'm doing okay today. Thanks, Jason.

Speaker 1 1:33

Yeah, I'm so honored that you're with us. We're going to talk about the book, we're going to talk about the title, we're going to talk about what led you to write it, but first tell us a little bit about Catherine.

Speaker 2 1:45

Okay, I grew up as a Navy kid. My dad was a doctor in the Navy, so I kind of moved around a lot and studied French, learned German, got married to an army guy, lived all around the world, dragged him through master's and everything. And I have four kids. Three are living and my son, Dallin, died a little over a year ago.

Speaker 1 2:10

So I love that you clarify. You say you have four children. You still have four children, right.

Speaker 1 2:16

Yeah yeah, yeah, you have four children. One of my best friends lost his son and and it took a little while for him to sort of find the right way to answer that question and his wife was, like why is this so hard for you? He, he is still our child, he's still with us. We're going to see him again. Like let's not talk about him in the past tense, and it was an interesting kind of a light bulb moment for him Like oh yeah, just because his mortal journey with us, that season, is done, does not mean that he's not still a part of our family. So of course he's still one of my kiddos and that, I think, was kind of a healing thing for him. So tell us about walking through the valley of the shadow of death and your little guy.

Speaker 2 2:59

So Dallin was eight years old when he fell off a slide at school and didn't make it. He just hit his head on the frozen ground and that was it. But he was in the hospital for two days with life support on and everything. And that two days was so significant for me. I felt so many things and it was so intense and I felt like I learned so much through that process and I received so much from the people around me and from God as well. I felt just compelled to write about it, to process it myself and to witness of what it was, everything that is horrible and hard and everything that you receive as you go into it, expecting to receive those things and expecting to be given what you need to survive.

Speaker 1 4:05

Hmm, tell us a little bit about him. What is he like?

Speaker 2 4:11

Dallin. Just my husband wrote the obituary and he said Dallin was perfectly imperfect. He just was an eight-year-old boy. He loved being a little boy. He loved being inappropriate and making rude jokes and sisters and he loved being silly and reading books and sitting in my lap and playing soccer and video games and watching stupid YouTube videos. He just loved every bit of being a little boy.

Speaker 1 4:51

Isn't that what little boys are supposed to do, right? I love that. As a father of two girls and two boys, I say all the time that I felt like I raised two families because my girls were older and then we had a five-year gap and then the two boys and boy and boy. These boys came along and, yeah, the jokes they make and the sounds they make and the smells that they generate as teenagers, it's really something to behold. So I love that idea that he was perfectly imperfect. I suspect that God would be pleased with that label as well. Now tell me again when this happened.

Speaker 2 5:33

He fell on February 6th 2023, and he officially passed away February 7th.

Speaker 1 5:39

Yeah, so we're barely a year past this. How long from his passing until you created a document and began to write.

Speaker 2 5:51

I that the morning after we came home from the hospital I you know we hadn't slept hardly at all at the hospital, but I couldn't sleep. I woke up at four in the morning and my head was just full of things that I had to write down. And so I got up and I sat in my front room and I wrote, and I wrote, and I wrote, and that ended up being the address that I gave at his funeral. And as soon as I had finished it, I knew that I wasn't done, that I had to start writing this book before it all kind of faded. I knew that there were other books that I would write later on about it, but that this experience right now. I could only write it immediately. And so I started writing right away and my first draft was done about two months later.

Speaker 1 6:41

Wow. As someone who's written a few books, I can tell you that is pretty fast. My friend who's written a few books.

Speaker 2 6:49

I can tell you that is pretty fast, my friend. Yeah, it was. I asked a lot of people to make a lot of sacrifices to give me the time to do it, but it was really important for me to do it before I forgot and before things changed. And even reading it now I'm like, oh, I think I would have written that a little differently, but I think that was the point. That was the book that I needed to write then that was the point.

Speaker 1 7:10

That was the book that I needed to write then. Yeah, oh yeah, I can't read a lot of what I've written previously, especially the much earlier stuff, because I see so many things that I would that I would do differently. But yeah, with a story like this, that is so, so close to your heart. So if there's someone listening and I'm sure there is who has been through something like this, is there any, is there any advice you'd give them before they pick this book up?

Speaker 2 7:36

Give yourself some quiet, give yourself some space that you know is going to be uninterrupted. This is I made it short on purpose and you're not going to want to split it up into many days. Maybe you'll have to. It's hard to read about a child dying. Anyways, I didn't hold back with things that I felt and the way that I describe it. It's all in there. So if you have to take a break, that's fine, but most people do it in one shot.

Speaker 1 8:05

Well, that is what I did and I, you know, I no-transcript. That's one of my favorite things to ask. If you're in an elevator and you've just got a few seconds with someone and they say what am I most going to learn from your book? What do you say?

Speaker 2 8:44

You will learn how it feels to lose someone. You will learn how it feels to lose someone.

Speaker 1 8:56

And you will learn what it means that you are not alone in that loss.

Speaker 2 9:05

What if, Catherine, I finish the book and I have lost someone and I feel like I'm still incomplete. I mean, you are. There's a hole in your heart forever, even believing as I do that Dallin is still part of our family and that he's not. He's far away, but he's not gone. We're going to see each other again and he's even like with me.

Speaker 2 9:31

There was a memorial primary children's held a memorial for all the kids that died in 2023 yesterday and I kind of reached out. It was like, dallin, would you just go to this with us, would you be there with us? And I felt like he was, but it's, you know, it's not the same. There are a million places that he should be, that he's not. And I would say, if you still feel incomplete, you are, you are forever and there is peace that you can find. But part of that peace is integrating that feeling of incompleteness, accepting it and knowing, of course, like we loved each other so much. We are a family. Of course, I will feel incomplete. Always, missing you is part of loving you and that love makes us better.

Speaker 1 10:25

And that is so beautifully said. So beautifully said. I had no idea where you would go with that and I didn't prep you for the question in advance, but what a beautiful and inspired, spontaneous response. I love that that incompleteness is a part of the healing, accepting that only Christ can complete us and that that is a long process and it doesn't happen. It doesn't happen overnight and ultimately your family won't be healed until you are both with him and with him, right With God and with your son. How has the rest of your family managed the loss and your decision to write a book?

Speaker 2 11:13

So my youngest daughter I've been writing for a long time. I started writing when my husband was in grad school to like, give me something to make me like a person and not just a machine trying to take care of everybody, make me like a person and not just a machine trying to take care of everybody. And uh, when I told my kids that I was getting this book published, my youngest daughter said I knew it, you're gonna be famous. I don't think that's what's happening, but hopefully, and she's like well, you're gonna be cul-de-sac famous. Well, you're going to be cul-de-sac famous.

Speaker 1 11:49

Like, maybe that maybe that Cul-de-sac famous? That is the best line I've ever heard. What's your daughter's name?

Speaker 2 11:56

Margaret.

Speaker 1 11:57

Margaret. How old is Margaret?

Speaker 2 11:59

She is 13.

Speaker 1 12:00

Oh, my heavens, you tell Margaret, that is the best description of local fame I have ever heard. Cul-de-sac famous. That is the best description of local fame I have ever heard. Cul-de-sac famous. That is fantastic. Well, if this podcast can do anything for anyone, I hope and pray from the bottom of my heart that it makes Katherine Cunningham cul-de-sac famous. That's the best. Thank you, I love that so much. Is there something in the future for you? Now that this is? It's about to hit stores. It's about to be available everywhere people like to buy their books. We'll have links to, of course, how people can pick the book up in the show notes, but I wonder what's next? Often, an experience like this and a nonfiction title like this will lead to more. What do you think that more could look like?

Speaker 2 12:51

Um. So right now I'm working on another one I it's. It uses my my parents story to kind of drive the narrative, but it is another, a nonfictionist. It's um, another one about like how our faith kind of sustains us and helps us make the risky choices that end up paying off big in our lives. But I've also thought about doing a collaboration with my sister. She lost her son about a year and a half before I lost my son and I thought bringing our perspectives together, especially like a few years down the road, would really help people. And yeah, I've, I've got a. I've got a few different projects in my head that hopefully will be the same kind of thing things that use experiences from my life and people I've known and and things from the scriptures and the Bible, that but that will help people feel stronger and feel empowered to face the hard things in their lives and to face them with faith and with hope.

Speaker 1 13:54

I'm reeling a bit from the fact that your sister lost a little one as well. What was his name and how old was he?

Speaker 2 14:02

His name was Nathan and I always forget how old he was because he was disabled, he was nonverbal and there were a lot of things about him that made it hard for me to remember how old he was actually. But he was.

Speaker 1 14:14

He was in his young teens, maybe 13, if I'm correctly, yeah, so so same kind of just unbelievable sense of loss, but in such a different, just unbelievable sense of loss, but in such a different, such a different way.

Dealing With Unexpected Loss

Speaker 2 14:32

It sounds like, yeah, it's just his circumstance was different. It's he was sick from the moment. It was a miracle that he survived being born. We always knew in our hearts that we were on borrowed time with him, but it's still so unexpected when it actually comes and you're actually losing him. It's it just hits you so hard, even though you should have known. You didn't know you, you could not see it coming right, right, yeah, it's that's because we're not supposed to.

Speaker 1 15:00

It's not, it's not our timing, it's God's and he and he. Ultimately, yeah, he's the, the, the author and finisher of our faith and the finisher of all things. So only he knows. Well, this has been such a treat. I am going to again make sure that in the show notes people can find everything they need to know about you.

Speaker 1 15:23

The book, where to pick it up I hope that people will. The book, where to Pick it Up I hope that people will. I hope that if you're listening and you have not been through something like this and cannot imagine ever going through something like this, I hope you do recognize that you too will go through something hard. And this book is not just for people who have lost a child or someone close. The book is for people who are going to go through really hard and unexpected things. And if you are listening to the sound of my voice right now, you are going to go through something really hard and unexpected, because that is the point. All right, catherine, thank you so very much. I cannot wait to have you back for books two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine and 10. And prayers, all my prayers for you to become cul-de-sac famous.

Speaker 2 16:17

Thank you so much, jason, really appreciate it.

Speaker 1 16:20

My pleasure.