The Broken Vase

This book is very personal and very real. It brings us close to the experience of losing a child, and all of the heartbreak that entails. It is also a book of grappling with faith and finding hope in the midst of darkness-an important book for anyone who has lost a child or knows someone who has.

Sherri Mandell, author of "The Blessing of a Broken Heart" and Director of the Koby Mandell Foundation

No greater love, no greater loss, no greater challenge: A mother's journey from despair to transcendence, harrowingly experienced, beautifully told.

Tova Reich, author, most recently of "The House of Love and Prayer and Other Stories"

Memoirs of a child's death are often a recounting of facts, a litany that must be verified on the page for the parent author to believe their impossible truth. In "The Broken Vase," Yaffa Klugerman's exploration of her firstborn son's death and its impact on her family and her deeply-held faith, the true purpose of memoir is revealed. Yaffa mines the depth of her experience as a Jew, a wife, and a bereaved mother to paint a shimmering portrait of an existence in complete disarray as she questions everything she knows and believes. She arrives at her explored truths in ways that leave her both brittle and soft, but retaining her unique traits: intelligent, spiritual, mindful and reflective, attuned to her surviving family, her relationship with God, and with her son Dov ever nearby. 

Gabriella Burman, author of "Michaela"

In her heart wrenching and deeply personal book, "The Broken Vase," Yaffa Klugerman powerfully and poignantly describes the shattering pain that those of us who have lost children on the roads experience and the courageous steps we must take to rebuild even as we remember. Yaffa's journey is one of courage, resilience and inspiration. Her words offer solace, strength, and a reminder that even in our deepest sorrow, hope and healing are possible.

Rochelle Sobel, President, Association for Safe International Road Travel