Wednesday, October 30, 2019

Soar, Adam, Soar

Left, the cover of "Soar, Adam, Soar." At right, author Rick Prashaw. (Photos courtesy Durdurn Press Limited and Rick Prashaw)


Broadview Magazine, formerly the United Church Observer, contains an excerpt from a new book called Soar, Adam Soar. It is written by Rick Prashaw about his son Adam, who died in an accident, and includes Adam's social media insights. The intro to Chapter 3 gives us a perspective on this young man: 

Adam Prashaw’s life was full of surprises from the moment he was born. Assigned female at birth, and with parents who had been expecting a boy, he spent years living as “Rebecca Danielle Adam Prashaw” before coming to terms with being a transgender man. Adam captured hearts with his humour, compassion and intensity. After a tragic accident cut his life short, he left a legacy of changed lives and a trove of social media posts documenting his life, relationships, transition and struggles with epilepsy, all with remarkable transparency and directness.

I appreciate Rick's honesty and openness, including his admission that while as a former Roman Catholic priest he had baptized hundreds of babies he hadn't experienced birth as a parent, nor the joys and challenges of parenthood.

Reading about this certainly came close to home in that I was the Protestant minister who presided at the wedding of Rick and his wife, Suzanne. Rick left the priesthood and an active Roman Catholic parish in Sudbury in order to experience love within marriage. He sought me out because he couldn't marry within his denomination and the service was a joyous celebration with many of his priest colleagues in attendance. I found him to be such a likable person and was honoured to be asked by them both. 

While I'm sure Rick has been a loving parent to the children from Suzanne's first marriage I feel a deep sense of sadness and poignancy in reading about the loss of the son they brought into the world together. I'm impressed that he has written about Adam with such love and acceptance and pray that they experience God's embrace.

https://broadview.org/soar-adam-soar/



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