“Several years ago, we were watching tv and an elderly lady had no family, and she knew she was close to death. So, she wants to go to funeral home to make her arrangements. All she had was a very nice car. So, she told the funeral home to sell raffle tickets for her car, but they would have to be present at her funeral to win the car because she knew she had no family that no one would be there for her and she would know that her car would go to a good cause.”
– an excerpt from the book
ARPress is honored to publish What Would It Be Like To Be There by Freda Harrison. This book is now available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and the ARPress website.
There’s something strange about grief. It slows time down in the smallest moments. A quiet chair in the corner suddenly feels louder than a crowded room. A favorite song catches someone off guard in the middle of washing dishes. Life keeps moving, bills still need paying, people still smile in grocery stores, dogs still bark at nothing, but loss has a way of making the world feel slightly tilted for a while.
And maybe that’s why books about heaven, love, and letting go continue to matter so much.
What Would It Be Like To Be There by Freda Harrison isn’t polished in the traditional literary sense, and honestly, that’s part of what makes it feel real. The book reads less like something carefully manufactured for critics and more like pages pulled from someone’s heart after living through deep pain, faith, caregiving, and love. It feels personal because it is personal.
Author Freda Harrison is a nurse who has spent her life in the geriatric field helping others and deeply loving her church and God. The book reflects that caring spirit throughout its pages. There’s a quiet sincerity in the way she writes, almost like sitting beside someone who genuinely wants to comfort others instead of impressing them. Harrison has often wondered what heaven would truly be like, what people’s bodies would become there, and whether loved ones would recognize each other again someday. Through scripture and faith, she shares the answers she believes are found in God’s holy word.
The story centers around loss, heaven, and the hope of reunion after death. Much of the book reflects on the passing of Freda Harrison’s husband, Jerry Harrison Jr., while also exploring Christian beliefs about eternity, comfort, and what waits beyond earthly suffering. There’s grief in these pages, definitely. But there’s also warmth. A kind of steady belief that sorrow is temporary, even when it feels impossibly heavy.
One thing the book does surprisingly well is capture the way real people actually talk about faith. Not in complicated theological language. Not in those overly dramatic “inspirational” phrases people post online and forget about five minutes later. It’s simple. Direct. Sometimes repetitive. Sometimes emotional in a way that almost feels like listening to someone speak out loud instead of reading edited prose.
That honesty carries the book.
There’s a moment where Harrison shares the story of an elderly woman who arranged for raffle tickets to be sold for her car so people would attend her funeral. It’s such a small story, but it lingers. Mostly because it touches on a fear a lot of people quietly carry: being forgotten. Being alone at the end. Harrison follows it with words for her husband about how full the house was during his celebration of life service, and suddenly the book shifts from reflection into something deeply human. Not perfect writing. Human writing. There’s a difference.
The faith themes throughout the book are unapologetically strong. Scripture, heaven, angels, eternal life, they’re woven into nearly every section. Readers who share those beliefs will probably find comfort in the certainty Harrison writes with. And even readers who aren’t particularly religious may still connect with the emotional core underneath it all: the desperate hope that love continues somehow, somewhere.
The book also reflects Harrison’s background as a retired nurse and caregiver. According to the author section, she worked in areas involving Alzheimer’s, cancer care, and caregiving support before founding New Horizon LIFE Coaching. That experience quietly shapes the tone of the book. There’s compassion in it. A familiarity with suffering. The kind that usually only comes from spending years around people during the hardest moments of their lives.
What stands out most is that Harrison doesn’t try to sound impressive. The book isn’t trying to be clever. It isn’t chasing literary awards or social media praise. It’s trying to comfort people. Especially people who are grieving, scared, sick, or spiritually exhausted.
And weirdly enough, that lack of polish becomes its own strength.
Some books feel distant, like they were written behind a wall of perfection. This one doesn’t. It feels handwritten. Personal. Like something shared over coffee after a long funeral service when everybody’s too emotionally drained to pretend anymore.
That’s probably why the title works so well too: What Would It Be Like To Be There. It’s not demanding answers. It’s wondering. Hoping. Reaching.
And honestly, people do a lot of that in life. Wondering what comes next. Wondering if the people they miss are okay. Wondering if pain eventually gives way to peace.
Freda Harrison’s book doesn’t claim to solve every mystery surrounding life and death. But it offers comfort in a straightforward, sincere way. Sometimes that’s enough. Sometimes people don’t need complicated answers. They just need someone to sit beside the ache for a little while and remind them they aren’t alone in it.
What Would It Be Like To Be There by Freda Harrison is now available for purchase via the ARPress Bookstore.