Healing Hearts: A Leading Pediatric Heart Surgeon Learns About the Journey from Grief to Life From These Inspiring Mothers of His Lost Patients

For pediatric heart surgeon Hisashi Nikaidoh, MD, a chance encounter near the hospital cafeteria would stay in his mind forever. The woman he ran into had lost her son in this hospital years earlier. Now she was working in the very place that had been unable to save her child’s life. Dr. Nikaidoh was stunned. He wondered how she could tolerate coming here every day. But respecting her privacy, he never asked the question. After losing his own son in a tragic accident several years later, Dr. Nikaidoh struggled terribly under the weight of his own grief. And his thoughts went back to this woman. What did she know that he could learn—this loving mother who seemed to have made peace with her loss? Healing Hearts shares eight mothers’ deeply honest and gut-wrenching journeys through grief—their pain, anger, attempts at solace with alcohol and bad relationships—as well as their decisions to honor their children by committing to lives of service. These stories, and that of the doctor with whom they share a unique bond, serve as testaments to God’s everlasting love and mercy, and guideposts on our own journeys of grief.