I would read in the New York Times that in the Khmer language, the term for giving birth — chlong tonle — means “to cross the river”. The phrase startled me. I put the paper down, then picked it up and reread it. Exactly, I thought. This gave me a way to describe my life back then. Losing Christopher was like having to make the dangerous journey back across the river. Every day felt like drowning. There were times I wanted to yield to it, to go into the stillness below the rush of the current and watch the light fade from beneath the surface. Reporting stories like Seth’s became my lifeline. It kept me above the waves, kept me from giving in. These people I reported on were the ones who showed me the way back across the river.
Crossing the River is a memoir of grief by Carol Smith, who was blind-sided by the sudden death of her son when he was seven years old. Although born with health challenges (and declared by doctors at the time to be suffering conditions “incompatible with life”), Christopher defied the early odds and was growing into a sweet and capable little boy when his life was cut short. The grief that descended onto Smith was overwhelming and lasted for decades, but as an award-winning newspaper journalist who specialises in medical stories, she would eventually write about many people who were facing incredible health challenges that would show Smith a pathway for dealing with her own pain. This was a hard book to read (perhaps a harder book to rate), but I truly appreciate the honesty, humanity, and vulnerability that Smith displays here. Her voice is clear and engaging, and through the stories of the seven individuals about whom she writes, Smith eventually relates her own entire history — before and after her time with Christopher — and besides being a moving look into a difficult life, I can see how this might be a useful resource for others suffering debilitating loss. (Note: I read an ARC through NetGalley and passages quoted may not be in their final forms.)
There is something called complicated grief, or in clinical terms, persistent complex bereavement disorder. It’s when you cannot accept a death. When you cannot resume your own living after a “normal” period of sorrow. I don’t know whether a clinician would apply this term to me. I do know this. After Christopher’s death, I lived in fear. I was afraid of forgetting who Christopher was, of letting go of him. Afraid I had failed him in his life and death, that I hadn’t been there to say goodbye. I lived warily, avoiding entanglements of all kinds, especially relationships, especially children. I dissociated from my own life, living in an orbit that let me slide frictionless through my days, interacting only with my small circle of close friends, who were exceedingly patient with me.
Carol Smith’s story of losing her son is profoundly moving and the stories she shares of seven of the people she profiled over the years (a burn victim, a double amputee, a boy with a terminal illness) each provided her with a lesson that she could apply to her own life (on resilience, gratitude, recognising that Christopher had made the most of the days he had been given). Smith obviously connected deeply with these people — she writes about continuing to visit with some of them long after their stories had been published in her newspaper — and her compassionate writing style brings all of these people to breathing life. If I had the smallest of complaints it would be the slightest sense that these people and their suffering were somehow intentionally put into Smith’s path in order to teach her these lessons. In the chapter on General John Shalikashvili (a United States Army general who served as Supreme Allied Commander Europe from 1992 to 1993 and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 1993 to 1997) and the stroke that forced him to relearn basic functions, Smith writes:
Strokes are one of the great levelers in life. A stroke strips you of control. It forces you to start over, relearn basic skills from how to chew and swallow to how to read, speak, and walk, depending on which area of the brain is damaged. Grief, in some sense, had done the same to me. Everything required deliberate effort. Eating, sleeping, getting up in the morning. Nothing was by rote. I moved in slow motion, executing the daily mechanics of life against the weight of water. Grief had knocked me off balance. Forced me to rewire, reexamine my relationships, reconsider my future. It had removed the illusion of control. But the nurse’s words to Shali were strangely hopeful to me. Only when the body understands, he’d said. Not if.
Obviously, this is Smith’s memoir and it’s appropriate for her to relate everything she experiences back to herself but if these were my experiences, I wouldn’t want them treated as universal object lessons instead of something more deeply and uniquely personal (if that makes sense?) At any rate, Crossing the River is moving and thought-provoking, and ultimately, inspirational. I am grateful to Carol Smith for sharing Christopher with us.
