Nicholas Wolterstorff's 25 year-old son Eric was killed in a mountaineering accident in the Alps, and this book charts his agonized response to the sense of irrevocable loss and absence that began with the numbing news of Eric's death. Eschewing pious sentiment for a much more honest and tough-minded approach to the appalling irreversibility of death, and exploring all the facets of his experience, the author rejects any easy options in the attempt to place his grief in a Christian context.