ON WINGS OF HOPE

A spiritual teacher helps a dying student navigate a battle with cancer in this debut memoir.

Bischoff had her first spiritual vision when she was only 5 years old, she says, when she was “awakened in the middle of the night by a brilliant white light.” She was alarmed yet strangely reassured at the same time, and she shared the experience with only one other person: her grandmother, who said that she’d also had mystical visitations. Because of this warm and loving relationship, Bischoff writes, she was able to come to terms with her own unsettling gift, responding to calls for help that she saw in the auras of people around her by transmitting love and empathy. Years later, after she launched a successful career as a self-described “life coach and energy-healing practitioner,” the author met Lily,a 33-year-old woman in remission after a second diagnosis of breast cancer. (Bischoff notes that the names of some people in her book have been changed.) Lily joined the author’s “Leading From the Heart Group” to try to find a spiritual path through her illness, and she gave and received support from like-minded seekers. Lily’s bond with the group gave her strength, Bischoff says, when, nine years later, her cancer returned. Once again, she turned to the author, her teacher and friend, to help her with her final journey. Bischoff’s layered memoir alternates her own story with Lily’s ongoing struggles, including biographical facts interspersed with spiritual ideas culled from Eastern religions and New Age traditions. The transitions, which include a description of one of the author’s teaching trips to Japan in the days before Lily’s decline, add vitality and interest to more expository text about Bischoff’s belief system. Lily’s story is compelling as she finds her way through fear and illness toward acceptance, and she sometimes offers powerful personal insights: “The cancer, Cynthia, has been a terrible bully.” The descriptions of the author’s spiritual philosophy can be wearing at times, but overall, the book provides readers with a moving depiction of the end of life.

An often touching story that occasionally gets bogged down in philosophical precepts.