Heartache & Birdsong: a story of going on even when you don’t think you can

What is this about?

This is Sam’s story — an outgoing, adventurous woman who fell in love with a wonderful man, travelled the world and along the way started a family. Then, an accident changed everything. And then a bird called Penguin changed everything again.

What else is this about?

This is a continuation of a story begun in Penguin Bloom, a book about Penguin and how taking care of her helped save Sam and her family in the wake of her accident that paralysed her.  This though is about Sam, about what her life before her accident, and her life after.

Blurb

The follow-up to the ABIA award-winning, international bestselling sensation Penguin Bloom

The heart-warming Australian story Penguin Bloom – the miraculous tale of a baby magpie that helped save a young mother and her family – is a homegrown and international bestseller; soon to be a major Hollywood movie, starring Naomi Watts and Andrew Lincoln. Sam’s personal message at the end of the book has resonated powerfully with readers – where, pulling no punches, she writes about what it is really like to face life in a wheelchair.

In Sam Bloom, Sam tells her own story for the first time – how a shy but determined Australian girl became a nurse and travelled across Africa. How she fell in love with a like-minded free spirit, raised three boys and built a life together on Sydney’s Northern Beaches. And then, in a single horrific moment, how everything changed. Sam’s journey back from the edge of death and the depths of despair is so much more than an account of overcoming adversity. Sam’s captivating true story – written by close friend, New York Times bestselling author Bradley Trevor Greive, and featuring extraordinary photographs taken by Sam’s husband, Cameron Bloom – is humbling, heartbreaking and uplifting in equal measure. A triumph of raw emotion and incredible beauty, Sam Bloom: Heartache & Birdsong is a truly unforgettable book.

Penguin Bloom is soon to be a major motion picture starring Naomi Watts, Andrew Lincoln, Jacki Weaver and Rachel House.

Heartache and Birdsong is a book focused on Sam Bloom, while Penguin Bloom is I think more focused on Penguin and how she changed Sam’s life and her family’s life.

Heartache and Birdsong is a little gem of a coffee table book, filled with bright, big images of the Bloom family and Penguin to accompany the text that is Sam’s story. This book, like Penguin Bloom is filled with beautiful images taken by her husband, Cameron.

This link tells you a little more about what Penguin Bloom is about, but Sam’s story is about her — about her adventurous life as a young nurse travelling the world, meeting her husband, Cameron and starting a family. There’s nothing particularly earth-shattering in what she shares in that part of the book, but it is the unvarnished truth of her life after her accident — falling and breaking her back and then being unable to walk, and experiencing constant pain — that stuck with me.

Sam details the suicidal thoughts she experienced, what she and her family went through as they came to terms with her injuries. Sam lays bare how disconnected she felt from her family, and that she planned her suicide.

Then Penguin arrived

Or to be more accurate, she fell out of her nest.

She describes taking care of this helpless little thing with her boys, and the and the fear she had that they could not save her. But, as much as she helped Penguin, Penguin began to save her bit by bit — knowing when she was down, and distracting her when she needed it the most.

It’s then the book turns to Sam reclaiming her life in ways she didn’t think she could — like becoming a world champion surfer as part of the Australian Adaptive Surfing Team.

She also describes the craziness of that the success of Penguin Bloom opened up for her — the journalists , photographers and speaking engagements. And every bit of it scared her, but she did it anyway.

Heartache and Birdsong is Sam’s story of how she came to terms with her injuries and her disability, and how Penguin helped her at a time when she needed it the most. Sam holds nothing back in this book — in her depression, and the decisions she made that cost her time with people that were important to her. Nor does she hide that she still has dark days, and she still mourns the woman she was, and the life she’s lost.

But she keeps going.

Yes, I cried at the end.