ANNA

An eloquent, extraordinarily painful memoir of a father's loss of his baby daughter. The author (a Maryland-based writer) and his wife, Beth, bore a daughter in January 1989. Her name was Anna. Five months later, she was dead, of something called VATER syndrome—a series of congenital anomalies involving her heart and esophagus, as well as her gastrointestinal system. A series of operations brought Anna to the point of functioning without mechanical help, but she died from unexplained complications following what was deemed a successful attempt to repair the valves in her heart. That's the medical picture. Her father paints another—of intense emotion, of loss, longing, and fear, of empty spaces and silence—but also of courage, devotion, commitment, and the revelations about oneself and the world that only a child can bring. He also gives us a portrait of Anna, of a beautiful, brave, happy infant with wild black hair and long thumbs who cooed and cried and smiled at strangers. There are no easy answers here, no mystical or religious surrender to the unknowable ways of the Almighty. There are no answers here at all, and that, in part, is the power of Loizeaux's story. ``I can offer no prescription for dealing with the losses that we all inevitably face,'' he says, ``except to live them and share them as fully as we can.'' On behalf of his daughter, Loizeaux shares his sorrow with heartbreaking honesty.