Bright Hour: Book Riot Task #1 A book published posthumously

I've joined the Book Riot Read GoodRead group and have been enjoying browsing people's ideas for their reading tasks.  I've never really had a plan for my reading, though I know both Lucy Calkins and Donalyn Miller encourage teachers to help their students' develop plans for reading. Or, as one I've the teachers I've worked with would say, "What's on deck?" (Baseball metaphor).  I'm enjoying the mild structure of a task without the rigidity of a list.

Someone suggested the book Bright Hour by Nina Riggs.  I've hesitated to read things like The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch or When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi, even though they are highly recommended, because my parents' deaths are still too fresh for me.  But, when I read the Nina Riggs was related to Emerson, I was intrigued.

When my father was taken off of chemo and put on hospice, he was told it could be weeks or days.  After almost 7 years of chemo, there was nothing else that they could try for his colon cancer that metastasized to the liver.  It was mid-March, and when the Jung Garden catalog came, he still planned for a garden.  The week after Mother's Day (the unofficial start of planting season), Dad and I were in the front of the house planting flowers.  It struck me that there was a good chance that he would not eat any of the produce of the garden, but he had ... not hope... but acceptance that life would continue and things would continue to grow without him and we could enjoy it. He died July 1st. After that, Mom and I had fresh tomatoes, fried zucchini, and wilted lettuce (see recipe), mid-summer.  Although I know we are all mortal and death can come at any time, I wondered,  how does one feel when the countdown begins - the inevitable becomes now.

Nina Riggs articulated a lot of what I imagine my parents thought, felt, and said to each other. Dad did not want to leave, he fought as long as he could, and he was concerned about what would happen to his family after he was gone. But in the midst of that, he also lived - like Nina.  He got up each morning and lived - watched movies, read the paper, had coffee and muffins with his sister, and prayed.

I know this post isn't so much about the book, but more about me - yet isn't that one of the reasons we read? To make sense of our experiences and get perspective on them?   It was a good book, I enjoyed the deftness of Nina Riggs in her use of language and connecting her story with the stories and authors before her.  Her story was filled with the ordinariness of life alongside the profound reckoning of death, but without self-pity. 

Right after I finished reading, this story was posted about her surviving spouse: Two dying memoirists wrote bestsellers about their final days. Then their spouses fell in love. For me, that was like seeing Dad's garden after his death - it was sad, but also nourishing.   It also reminded me that all things are transient. "This too, shall pass. When things are bad, remember: It won't always be this way. Take one day at a time. When things are good, remember: It won't always be this way. Enjoy every great moment."