Still Here: On Loss and Healing

Today I received a message from an old friend who just had finished reading A Report from Winter. She said that the book had moved her “on many levels,” especially since she had lost her father a few months ago. On top of that, her mother is presently in the throes of what may be her final illness.

My friend went on to say that she had been “crushed” by the loss of a close friend about ten years ago. At the time she thought that writing about the experience might relieve her grief somewhat, but she was unable to “put a word coherently on paper.” I was quick to point out, in my reply to her email, that it’s not too late to write about it now; perhaps mentioning it in her message to me was a start.

Alan Chin, in his beautiful review of Winter, wrote that while reading the book “I was so often reminded of the emotions that I felt while dealing with my father’s cancer and eventual death that I went through emotional turmoil myself.”

This is a recurring theme in reader comments. Foster Corbin, an Amazon reviewer, wrote, “I too a couple of Januarys ago in a nursing home sat at the bedside of my comatose, dying mother…. The guilt of not doing enough and not visiting your mother often sounded all too familiar… [Wayne’s] description of the visit to his mother’s home after she died and going through her personal effects–it almost made my eyes burn.”

Italian reviewer and gay literature supporter Elisa Rolle, in her very moving review, wrote about losing her father when she was only 19. And reviewer Robert Satuloff aptly describes the loss of a parent as “an event that unlocks the past, makes one question the present, reverses lifelong roles and is fraught with anxiety, dread, relief and an unstoppable flow of memories.”

Far from finding anything maudlin in the memories readers have shared, I see courage and hope…and healing. We are not alone. We are still here, and we are telling our stories—bearing powerful witness, not only to loss, but to the ongoing search for love and understanding that keeps us connected.