LEGACY OF HOPE

Wilbanks presents a brief memoir of faith, love, loss, and family.

“Have you accomplished the plans God had for your life and is He pleased?” asks Wilbanks in her slim nonfiction debut. “What is your role now as you have gotten older? Will God still be able to use you when you are not as active as you used to be?” This opening reminder of time’s passage informs all of the author’s reflections on her family, from her ancestors (the book starts with remembered stories of her great-grandmother) to her husband, Ed, with whom she’s spent many happy decades. By the end of the narrative, the couple has lived through multiple troubles, including the Covid-19 pandemic, during which the couple experienced health issues, and Ed’s battle with alcoholism: “Ed and I have a good life and we tell each other how glad we are that we kept our family together,” Wilbanks writes. “Our families can say that we had the help of the Lord in every trial that we faced.” She writes about several of those trials, including her own stroke in 2009 and subsequent recovery, but she writes about plenty of happy times, as well, including the births of her children and the joy she felt in watching them grow up and helping them whenever she could. Through it all, Wilbanks repeatedly refers to her deeply held Christian faith, which becomes the book’s main theme. Some readers may find aspects of the narrative to be somewhat jarring at times, as when the author ends her otherwise affectionate recollection of her father, who died suddenly, on a proselytizing note: “Being a good person, like my daddy, does not get you into Heaven. Accepting Jesus Christ as the Savior is the only way.” However, she writes simply and passionately about many everyday details of her life, and most readers will find it very easy to identify with her hopes and setbacks.

An often-touching story of a devout woman’s life.