Customer Reviews

Language Lessons (For When Your Mom Dies)

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(1)
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1 star:		(2)

 

 

It's not often that a book comes along that says, "read me." Really read me. We all can all name a few. They fall under classics, with a capital C. Mary Clare Griffin's Language Lessons is one of those books, for it calls our rapt attention, not just to its poetry, its language, music, mystery, but also to its content: brutal, raw, life stuff - death, reconciliation and redemption. Language Lessons reminds us, in the words of Rainer Maria Rilke, "everything that makes more of you than you have ever been, even in your best hours, is right."

Language Lessons IS right. It will make more of you than you ever been: it will make you laugh, and cry, and make you angry and fiercely committed to living your life with a heart and palm wide open. It will make you want to voyage, in the same way Griffin does, down your own personal river of self discovery, self knowledge, and yes, self indulgence: turbulent, dangerous, personal and utterly painful. And yet, so, so necessary.

Language Lessons invites all of us to witness Griffin's journey during four years of her adult life. Through oft-times pared-down diary entries (think emotional Zen) and carefully worded prose, Griffin takes us through the illness and eventual death of her mother, by observing, recording and uncovering her family's drama and trauma (including her own) springing from this tremendous loss. And what a loss it was. Not just the death of a friend, a wife, a lover and a mother of five, but the death of everything we protect so closely within ourselves: trust, need, desire, love. Innocence. It is this loss with which Griffin wrestles. And she does so with the grace and truthfulness of a poet. Indeed, she bares her life in stark, brutal honesty -- true, open, close-to-the-bone-language, the stuff of heartfelt prayers: help, wait, stay, love me, don't die, forgive, forget. Engaging, eloquent, at times elegiac.

Ultimately, Language Lessons transcends the grammar of death. It rises above finality to rest in the newness, renewal of reconciliation and redemption. Griffin's work delivers hope, for, if nothing else, she allows us to see her own soul, bare, wide open and full of grace. With such honesty and such beauty, we wait patiently for her next book.

As a physician who attends several hospice conferences a year, I found this book invaluable for caregivers, especially those of baby boomer age. Rarely does one find such an honest and raw account of what it is like to lose a parent; and, the subsequent despair- and healing- that ultimately follows. Griffin offers us a gift.

Must read: Terrified of how close to home this book hit-frightening and exhilarating play by play account of a woman on the edge dying inside while her mother was dying of cancer.

This book is intense and hard to put down. Triumphant in the end she pulls herself up and becomes a catalyst for change, due to a power that intermingles with my own----revealed.

In the end: a time of rebirth, growth, and renewal.

Rarely do I finish a novel in one sitting, but Griffin's account of her mother's passing had me spellbound. Although it is a intensely personal memoir, I completely related to the pain of losing one's mother and the courage it takes to deal with the immediacy of the situation.

I enjoyed her book immensely and would recommend it to anyone dealing with the pain of losing a mother.

This is at once a great book for it's artful language and a painful journey that will tear at your heart. Read Language Lessons if you've lost a loved one, been estranged from your family or wish to have your belief in God's grace affirmed.

The horrors of a mother victimized by breast cancer - the futility, anger, and sorrow of a daughter alienated from her, this non-fiction piece is hellbent on truth. Truth that at times is very difficult to read, and compassion that oozes from every page. Mary Clare Griffin has experienced firsthand the angst of loss and effectively communicated what all of humanity feels when someone we love suffers and dies. Griffin emerges the victor as she tackles our age old questions and educates us as she freely bleeds on the page.

A must read for every woman with a mother or a daughter. That would be everyone.

In diary form, Mary Clare Griffin weaves the story of reconcilliation with her mother through the backdrop of her past and present. Beginning with an almost minute by minute chronicle of her mother's last days, Language Lessons is immediately captivating. From there, Mary Clare digresses to previous years and experiences showing the rift she had with her mother and family. I identified so much with the struggles Mary Clare had in her life with her family. From the betrayals of friends and even therapists to having to tell my mother of sexual abuse and being terrified of her response. Will she love me...or reject me? My own mother was not as loving as Mary Clare's...but I got to see how my experience could have been if my mother and I had healed with eachother the way Mary Clare did with her mom. Even in the aftermath of her mother's death, Mary Clare has difficulty relating to her father and 3 other brothers and sister. She loses hope and then recovers, resolved to share her experience with others. I can't tell you how greatful I am. She told my story...maybe not my details exactly...but that wasn't the point. I got the point for me...I hope everyone will read this book...it has something for everyone.

Maybe I needed to feel someone else's pain, I'm not sure. All I know is that Ms. Griffin's words allowed me to convert my grief over losing my mom to a sense that I had indeed survived and must take all of the positive memories of my mother and MOVE FORWARD with their energy. Thank you.

Mary Clare Griffin exposes real life issues more honestly and poetically than any modern author I have yet to read. She offers inspiration that is unlike most other writers. Rather than telling her story as an afterthought, she nakedly documents her feelings and experiences as each day passes. Griffin chronicles her life as she cares for her mother (whose dying of breast cancer), as she battles with career choices and damaged relationships, and as she triumphantly finds the inner-strength to survive.

Her story of forgiveness, courage and love is an inspiration to anyone who has a loved one suffering with a terminal illness, anyone who has troubled relationships, and anyone who appreciates a work of literature that breathes style, grace, and talent.

I paid my 14.95 and got 58 million bucks worth.