Oh, goodness, thank you so. I remember when my son died rereading Joan Didion's _The Year of Magical Thinking_ where she says, late in the book, "You sit down to dinner and life as you know it ends."
This is so exquisitely beautiful and expressed in a language that we can all relate to even if we've not experienced this particular grief. I still grieve deeply for my parents who thankfully did not go before their time; so I can only imagine what depths it must take to grieve the death of a son. As I read it, even tho' I am not Jewish, all your symbolism made sense, in a way that this became also a lovely instruction "manual" on how to make sense of grief. Thank you for writing this, dear Mary.
This piece is stunningly poignant, heart-wrenchingly sad, and yet, so beautiful too. So many emotions come through via your words. Mostly, love. Yes, mostly love indeed. Thank you for letting us into your grieving heart - a sacred space. Honored and humbled for the glimpses you share. xo
Gorgeous, gorgeous words about grief. I met and lost my Benjamin in the same moment. He didn’t get to see the sun set, or the waves crash. But the grief found me just the same. I often think how exponentially more terrible, more painful it is when they breathe, when they live, when you know the color of their eyes and the sound of their laugh and then they go. It is my terror with my living child (perhaps every parent’s terror). Thank you for this lifeboat for those tumbling in the waves, for our tender hearts.
Mary - 15 yrs ago I lost the mother of my two boys. I’d lost her as partner 15 yrs before that, her drug addiction hidden to me. I nearly lost my son to the addiction she had drawn him into. I was at her bedside with my sons when she passed. I cried there and mourned her passing more deeply than I could’ve expected. This is the first time since that I have cried so openly. May our tears slowly wash away the pain and leave only the glowing warmth of having known the presence of such beauty in our lives.
Yes, we hold the memories, good and bad: the loss of your partner, mother to your son and then the realization at her bedside of the depth of the loss. Grief has its own voice. We must listen and we must answer as you have done here. I thank you so for the open vulnerability you bravely expressed here--I connect to you, Richard. I do.
Thank you Mary - and please forgive me for making it about my loss. You write beautifully and the loss you suffer, made so clear in your letter, put me back in touch with something I thought I’d let go of. He sounds like a wonderful young man, nearly the same age as my older son Brian. It seems, that like my sons, yours was adventurous and full of life. I can’t know your loss Mary, but I’ve imagined it every time Brian throws himself down a mountain trail on his mt bike or every time my younger son, Joel, goes to work in the wind turbines or pulls himself up a cliff. I imagine your son’s wine was a reflection of his life - rich, full bodied and deep. What a privilege it must have been to raise him. I wish you a growing and sustaining peace.
Thank you for sharing your raw heart with us. And for sharing your son.
I believe that we live on within the hearts of those who know us, and you’ve now given each of us a small piece of his light and yours.
I hope that you are able to share more as it bubbles up.
I wish I had words that would comfort your sorrow, but there are none. I send you an energetic hug from another woman out here in the world who is a Mother.
Mary, in the face of tragedy this is so gorgeous and so rare. I know as you do that our culture deals with grief poorly, or more to the point, not at all. With profound loss, we experience the seeming impossibility of seeing the world go on when we feel our world has stopped. There is so much silence from the world around, and when not silent, so much failure to know how to connect, how to empathize.
Lifeboat is a beautiful, perfect metaphor. You not only grieve, you reach out. You teach us how it feels. The “raw threads” of an inside-out sweater. “The ash of stay — and gone.” The still, splayed splash in the lake where something has fallen. Over and over you bring us to understanding and, one hopes, the ability to express true empathy and connection. “Others may be lost and searching… others too may have felt as if they were drowning, that they too have been without a lifeboat. To them I say: Comfort can abide not-knowing and that you, who read this, are the lifeboat in my ocean.”
Knowing that you are here, even if it is only you, offering this, gets us through.
My heart in love and hope to yours for such a gorgeous comment, sol eloquently stated and the offer of courage to write again. With all this, witness to my life, I thank you.
Mary, I am glad I saw your interview with Kimberly Warner before I read Lifeboat. It offered a deeper insight, especially to the multiple rejections from publishers (their huge loss) and the discussion about it being written in note form. It is perfect this way because it is real, it is you, and it is Benjamin. Each note offers us a chance to see, to feel, and to sit with your pain as well as our own. Reading each one I had the sense of you conveying the essence of what I hold in my own grief, only to go on to the next one and the next one. It is amazing that, in your own writing, you seem to also see me.
Thank you for this vulnerable share and allowing us to hold your son in our hearts.
Donna, dear, the very fact that you say that you are seen gives me not only hope for the repair the writing gave me but faith in the creative side of my life that stopped short when my son died. I honor you with this comment because you are part of my lifeboat that keeps me afloat in the sea of loss. I am hoping that some of my other work up here that is not about this loss might give you that sense as well, but I say that knowing well how time is so limited to read others.
Donna, I want you to know that, as over subscribed as I am, my policy on Substack is to read and comment on every person who does that for me with a comment on anything. That exchange is taking me longer than usual for "Lifeboat", but I will catch up. To put it more simply: If you read me and comment, I read you and comment. That I have discovered builds connection--much more than the easy "heart" as a "like": Thus, "Only connect ..." the title of my Substack.
If we didn't love, the loss would not have been so great. Hearing you read your notes stopped me in my tracks from all the have to do's and should do's and lists reminding me loudly about responsibility and timing. This cuts through all of that. This reminds me of my mother's horrendous loss when her youngest, my baby brother, died in 1993 at the age of 31. He left behind a 30-day baby girl and a two-and-a-half year old girl at home. It is the worst when they die before their time. Yet, my brother was saying goodbye before it happened. He summed up my life 85 days before he lost his life. My response? "Steven, I'm not dead yet."
I commune with my brother every day. I feel him messaging me from beyond, getting ever more clear with each passing year. In 1993, I shut down for a decade. I've heard they can't come through when we are so deep in grief. Both my folks are gone now as well. Last night when working with the #6 Sony Digital recorder that had 3 more hours of recordable time on it (Steve died on 6/3) ... I came across my mom's voice comforting me from my fears about cancer in folder A, the 8th of 73 files in that folder. My mom brought me to 873 Stevely from the hospital. My baby brother was conceived at 873 Stevely. He was named Steve(n).
It is only if we truly love, that we deeply grow. You pouring this out to the community here proves just how important not only writing is, but being in a community of writers who write because they must write. Most of us know we must feel, but feeling is difficult. Someone who can feel and express their feelings as beautifully as you do, grace this world forever. I hope with each day you begin to delight with the possibility of how many ways he can still seek you, fly you, give to you, remind you how grateful he was to have YOU as his mom.
Eloquent, personal --I so thank you for sharing your story about Steve and doing so with such candor. Age 31 is so out of order. I wonder if you experienced the silence I tried to break with this essay that took me so long to write and courage to post? Your words encourage my belief that the writing matters and I thank you from my heart.
This is one of the most beautiful things I have ever read about grief. And I’ve read many. Thank you for sharing this.
My heart to yours -- you words about this essay so close to my heart moved me to tears, Tracey.
I lost my wife last May. This. Every word. Thank you.
Oh, goodness, thank you so. I remember when my son died rereading Joan Didion's _The Year of Magical Thinking_ where she says, late in the book, "You sit down to dinner and life as you know it ends."
So much of this is how I have felt, losing my son at 33. Thank you. I think he is with me, and also I know the hollow space.
Yes, "the hollow space" -- so well put and thank you so for reading and posting this comment.
This is so exquisitely beautiful and expressed in a language that we can all relate to even if we've not experienced this particular grief. I still grieve deeply for my parents who thankfully did not go before their time; so I can only imagine what depths it must take to grieve the death of a son. As I read it, even tho' I am not Jewish, all your symbolism made sense, in a way that this became also a lovely instruction "manual" on how to make sense of grief. Thank you for writing this, dear Mary.
So much thought, Reena, went into your comment and made me so grateful to virtually know you.
Dear Mary - thinking of you every day and hoping you are safe.
Oh, Elizabeth, you are lovely ...
Thank-you. This is beautiful, heartbreaking and deeply moving. I will see the fire-sky and think of your son. And you. xo
Ah, Kim, means so much ... xo
Hi Mary,
This piece is stunningly poignant, heart-wrenchingly sad, and yet, so beautiful too. So many emotions come through via your words. Mostly, love. Yes, mostly love indeed. Thank you for letting us into your grieving heart - a sacred space. Honored and humbled for the glimpses you share. xo
Honored and moved by your read, Nancy.
Thank you for such an openly beautiful description -- all the sincerity, confusion and truthful pain of living inside out
Means so much that you say this, Carol!
Just stunning.
Kindness and more: That's you!
Gorgeous, gorgeous words about grief. I met and lost my Benjamin in the same moment. He didn’t get to see the sun set, or the waves crash. But the grief found me just the same. I often think how exponentially more terrible, more painful it is when they breathe, when they live, when you know the color of their eyes and the sound of their laugh and then they go. It is my terror with my living child (perhaps every parent’s terror). Thank you for this lifeboat for those tumbling in the waves, for our tender hearts.
Oh, Alana, your Benjamin, too! Heart breaks and you word here is poetic, so generous in the spirit of the writing. My heart to your, Mary
Mary - 15 yrs ago I lost the mother of my two boys. I’d lost her as partner 15 yrs before that, her drug addiction hidden to me. I nearly lost my son to the addiction she had drawn him into. I was at her bedside with my sons when she passed. I cried there and mourned her passing more deeply than I could’ve expected. This is the first time since that I have cried so openly. May our tears slowly wash away the pain and leave only the glowing warmth of having known the presence of such beauty in our lives.
Yes, we hold the memories, good and bad: the loss of your partner, mother to your son and then the realization at her bedside of the depth of the loss. Grief has its own voice. We must listen and we must answer as you have done here. I thank you so for the open vulnerability you bravely expressed here--I connect to you, Richard. I do.
Thank you Mary - and please forgive me for making it about my loss. You write beautifully and the loss you suffer, made so clear in your letter, put me back in touch with something I thought I’d let go of. He sounds like a wonderful young man, nearly the same age as my older son Brian. It seems, that like my sons, yours was adventurous and full of life. I can’t know your loss Mary, but I’ve imagined it every time Brian throws himself down a mountain trail on his mt bike or every time my younger son, Joel, goes to work in the wind turbines or pulls himself up a cliff. I imagine your son’s wine was a reflection of his life - rich, full bodied and deep. What a privilege it must have been to raise him. I wish you a growing and sustaining peace.
Wow. This was so moving. I have no words other than, thank you.
Oh, Michael Edward, my heartfelt thanks for your meaningful words that went straight to my heart. ~ Mary
Thank you for sharing your raw heart with us. And for sharing your son.
I believe that we live on within the hearts of those who know us, and you’ve now given each of us a small piece of his light and yours.
I hope that you are able to share more as it bubbles up.
I wish I had words that would comfort your sorrow, but there are none. I send you an energetic hug from another woman out here in the world who is a Mother.
Ah, Teyani, my heart to yours. I thank you with my words and with yours that give me courage.
Mary, in the face of tragedy this is so gorgeous and so rare. I know as you do that our culture deals with grief poorly, or more to the point, not at all. With profound loss, we experience the seeming impossibility of seeing the world go on when we feel our world has stopped. There is so much silence from the world around, and when not silent, so much failure to know how to connect, how to empathize.
Lifeboat is a beautiful, perfect metaphor. You not only grieve, you reach out. You teach us how it feels. The “raw threads” of an inside-out sweater. “The ash of stay — and gone.” The still, splayed splash in the lake where something has fallen. Over and over you bring us to understanding and, one hopes, the ability to express true empathy and connection. “Others may be lost and searching… others too may have felt as if they were drowning, that they too have been without a lifeboat. To them I say: Comfort can abide not-knowing and that you, who read this, are the lifeboat in my ocean.”
Knowing that you are here, even if it is only you, offering this, gets us through.
Thank you.
My heart in love and hope to yours for such a gorgeous comment, sol eloquently stated and the offer of courage to write again. With all this, witness to my life, I thank you.
Mary, I am glad I saw your interview with Kimberly Warner before I read Lifeboat. It offered a deeper insight, especially to the multiple rejections from publishers (their huge loss) and the discussion about it being written in note form. It is perfect this way because it is real, it is you, and it is Benjamin. Each note offers us a chance to see, to feel, and to sit with your pain as well as our own. Reading each one I had the sense of you conveying the essence of what I hold in my own grief, only to go on to the next one and the next one. It is amazing that, in your own writing, you seem to also see me.
Thank you for this vulnerable share and allowing us to hold your son in our hearts.
Donna, dear, the very fact that you say that you are seen gives me not only hope for the repair the writing gave me but faith in the creative side of my life that stopped short when my son died. I honor you with this comment because you are part of my lifeboat that keeps me afloat in the sea of loss. I am hoping that some of my other work up here that is not about this loss might give you that sense as well, but I say that knowing well how time is so limited to read others.
I know what you mean about time to read being limited, and yet I certainly look forward to diving into your other essays.
Donna, I want you to know that, as over subscribed as I am, my policy on Substack is to read and comment on every person who does that for me with a comment on anything. That exchange is taking me longer than usual for "Lifeboat", but I will catch up. To put it more simply: If you read me and comment, I read you and comment. That I have discovered builds connection--much more than the easy "heart" as a "like": Thus, "Only connect ..." the title of my Substack.
If we didn't love, the loss would not have been so great. Hearing you read your notes stopped me in my tracks from all the have to do's and should do's and lists reminding me loudly about responsibility and timing. This cuts through all of that. This reminds me of my mother's horrendous loss when her youngest, my baby brother, died in 1993 at the age of 31. He left behind a 30-day baby girl and a two-and-a-half year old girl at home. It is the worst when they die before their time. Yet, my brother was saying goodbye before it happened. He summed up my life 85 days before he lost his life. My response? "Steven, I'm not dead yet."
I commune with my brother every day. I feel him messaging me from beyond, getting ever more clear with each passing year. In 1993, I shut down for a decade. I've heard they can't come through when we are so deep in grief. Both my folks are gone now as well. Last night when working with the #6 Sony Digital recorder that had 3 more hours of recordable time on it (Steve died on 6/3) ... I came across my mom's voice comforting me from my fears about cancer in folder A, the 8th of 73 files in that folder. My mom brought me to 873 Stevely from the hospital. My baby brother was conceived at 873 Stevely. He was named Steve(n).
It is only if we truly love, that we deeply grow. You pouring this out to the community here proves just how important not only writing is, but being in a community of writers who write because they must write. Most of us know we must feel, but feeling is difficult. Someone who can feel and express their feelings as beautifully as you do, grace this world forever. I hope with each day you begin to delight with the possibility of how many ways he can still seek you, fly you, give to you, remind you how grateful he was to have YOU as his mom.
Eloquent, personal --I so thank you for sharing your story about Steve and doing so with such candor. Age 31 is so out of order. I wonder if you experienced the silence I tried to break with this essay that took me so long to write and courage to post? Your words encourage my belief that the writing matters and I thank you from my heart.