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Seven Stories That Saved My Life, A Memoir
by Carol Smith
Book Reviewed by:A powerful exploration of grief following the death of the author's son that combines memoir, reportage, and lessons in how to heal.
Everyone deals with grief in their own way. Helen MacDonald found solace in training a wild goshawk. Cheryl Strayed found comfort in hiking the Pacific Crest Trail. For Carol Smith, a Pulitzer Prize–nominated journalist struggling with the sudden death of her seven-year-old son Christopher, the way to cross the river of sorrow was through work.
In Crossing the River, Smith recounts how she faced down her crippling loss through reporting a series of profiles of people coping with their own intense challenges, whether a freak accident, a debilitating injury, or a terrifying diagnosis. Smith deftly mixes the stories of these individuals and their families with her own account of how they helped her heal. General John Shalikashvili, once the most powerful member of the American military, taught Carol how to face fear with discipline and endurance. Seth, a young boy with a rare and incurable illness, shed light on the totality of her son's experiences, and in turn helps readers see that the value of a life is not measured in days.
This is a beautiful and profoundly moving book, an unforgettable journey through grief, and a valuable, illuminating read for anyone coping with loss.
PROLOGUE
I did not go to my son Christopher's school the day the nurse came to speak. Instead, I lay fetal-like on his bed, my face pressed to his sheets. The trace scents of crayons and Band-Aids, mud and baseball leather, kept me breathing. I squeezed my eyes shut. Images clicked by like a reel in his View-Master:
Christopher, riding a therapy horse, showing off his "tricks," his arms sticking straight out, his head thrown back, laughing. Christopher, hiding rocks and shells under his bed, the found treasures of a seven-year-old.
Christopher, nestled next to me on the bed as we read books together in sign language.
"Again, story," he would sign, tapping the fingertips of one hand into the palm of the other, then drawing his hands apart like he was pulling taffy. I'd laugh, knowing this was a tactic to avoid the dreaded bedtime, and turn back to the beginning.
We'd spied this bed together early one Sunday morning as we wandered the Rose Bowl flea market in Pasadena, California, ...
This book is certainly heavy and can be difficult to read, but a journey into these lives is a beautiful one (Amber H). Crossing the River is a sober, hopeful reminder that we're not all as separate as we sometimes think. What we've been through, somebody else has been through (Rory A). Smith's memoir, a deeply personal journey of recovery from grief, is an exceptionally lyrical and beautifully written work of literature that invites the reader to follow her through intimate revelations leading her to a place of acceptance, forgiveness, healing and hope (Laurin B)...continued
Full Review
(662 words)
(Reviewed by First Impressions Reviewers).
Ann Hood, author of The Knitting Circle and Comfort: A Journey Through Grief
There is no rule book for how to grieve, so we are left to navigate our own way through it, hopeful that there are compasses in the world to point us in the right direction. Crossing the River is one such compass. An unflinching look at Carol Smith's grief after the loss of her young son, it illuminates how sometimes going to the very places we want to hide from can show us the way. Salamishah Tillet, author of In Search of the Color Purple
Crossing the River grapples with an unbearable loss, one that no parent, or reader for that matter, ever wants to confront. Carol Smith dares us to enter this world of grief with her and by doing so gives us a vulnerable and brave story of resilience, hope, and healing that can only be found in communion with others.
Carol Smith's Crossing the River recounts the death of her young son, Christopher, in combination with stories of other people who have experienced loss. In an interview with Hippocampus Magazine, Smith recalls memoirs about grief that have been influential for her. Below are some of the books she mentions, along with other significant memoirs of grief and loss.
Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail by Cheryl Strayed tells the story of the author's 1,100-mile journey hiking from the Mojave Desert to Washington State, a trip taken to deal with the grief of her mother's death. The book follows the obstacles that Strayed faced along the way as well as how the time on the trail helped her heal.
H Is for Hawk is another ...
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At times, our own light goes out, and is rekindled by a spark from another person.
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