Used book – Help yourself and Heaven..., Yves Viollier

A generous woman, engaged in a daily struggle to try to lift disadvantaged children out of material and moral poverty, fails to see that her own desperate son is on the verge of suicide.

In Moutiers, in the heart of the Vendée, Marie, as part of an episcopal mission, has gathered about ten adolescents facing serious personal difficulties. By giving meaning back to their existence, by instilling in them her faith, and by involving them in a collective project, she strives to restore their desire and strength to live. A widow, Marie raised her son Simon alone. At seventeen, he went to Haiti to work for an NGO. In that tormented country, he discovered a level of poverty he hadn't imagined. One day, he gave in to the insistence of one of his very young protégés and took him along to one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in Port-au-Prince. The child was kidnapped and then murdered. Severely traumatized, Simon was repatriated to France, where his mother convinced herself that returning home would help him overcome his grief. She doesn't see him wasting away until the day he, inconsolable, throws himself out a window. He is found paraplegic. Marie's world collapses. Her faith wavers. Her life has lost all meaning. She will recover thanks to the active affection of the young people she helped, relying on the extraordinary courage her son will demonstrate by fiercely fighting to regain the use of his body.