Since the release of my new book He Made Us Better: A Story of Faith, Family, Friends (and Football), the story of our 39-year adventure with our special-needs son Peter, who passed away in 2014, I’ve received a lot of feedback. I’ve been blessed by the very positive and encouraging comments I’ve received from readers, and have thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to engage with them about the book.

Of all the comments I’ve received, by far the most common has been, “Was it hard, writing about Peter?” Very honestly, it was a mixed bag.

As I mentioned in the preface of the book, this wasn’t just something I rushed into. Instead, I sensed that this was a good story that God wanted me to share with others because of its potential to inspire and encourage. One of the reasons I was hesitant to write a memoir like this was that it would essentially “turn my/our lives into an open book.” (Yes, pun intended). I’m really a pretty private person, and telling some of the personal stories in the book was w-a-a-a-a-y outside my comfort zone. One reader told me, “I felt like I was sitting right there in your living room, taking everything in.” That’s good, because that was one of my goals. But also unnerving, because that was one of my fears.

Back to the question. Yes, some parts of it were very hard, and I cried my way through them. I told my wife Sandra that after a couple of the more difficult chapters, I felt like I’d played a football game—all beat up and totally exhausted. Yet at the same time, there was something cleansing and healing about re-visiting and writing about even the hard places. Any pain I experienced was easily worth it.

Then there were the fun and funny times, which were a total joy to re-visit. The stories of helping Peter as he kept stats for his class’s football and basketball teams, some of the fun things that happened while we were making the rounds of doctor visits, our “fun activities of the day,” or even lighter moments in the hospital, were precious memories, and great to re-live.

One of the ironies of writing about either the good times or the tough ones, was that it literally took me back in time. Like when you hear this song that was popular when you were 16, it takes you back to that special date, or the football locker room. In the same way, when I wrote about these stories from our lives, it very much put me back “in the moment.” And once I was there, I wanted to stay for awhile, and savor those moments, whether fun or difficult. Very typically, I’d finish a chapter at maybe 10:30 at night. Then I’d just sit here in my office chair, re-living or reflecting on what I’d just written about, for another hour or so. It was the nearest I could get, in this life, to actually being able to “do it one more time,” with Peter. And also to appreciate the special opportunities we’d been blessed to live, and have the honor of being Peter’s dad, and being able to tell his story.

And then I enjoyed reading the stories I’d written for the book. When I write an article for a farm magazine, if it’s something where I feel good about what I’ve written, I like to re-read it. I spent a lot of time just re-reading the stories about our life with Peter. It was fun.

I’ve also received a lot of feedback from readers who said that they thoroughly enjoyed the book, that it “made them laugh and cry.” While I’m always glad to hear that, I want it to go deeper than that, and my sense is that it does. The reason I wrote the book is that Peter really did have a knack for “making us better,” as did the many people whom God worked through, who were part of the journey and the story. My hope and prayer is that as people read the book, and hopefully enjoy it, that they too, will feel they’re in some way a better person for having had the experience.