Who I am.

I write about the landscape of grief, nature, and the wisdom of fools. The author of four books, my essays, poems, and reviews have been published in over 50 journals, including in the Huffington Post and Colorado Review. I’ve won the River Teeth Nonfiction Book Award, the Chautauqua and Literal Latte’s essay prizes, and my work has been nominated for four Pushcart Prizes and named a notable by Best American Essays. My account of hiking in Yosemite to deal with my wife’s death, Mountains of Light, was published by the University of Nebraska Press. http://www.markliebenow.com.

Thursday, November 20, 2014

A Spiritual Journey Through Grief


Book: Leaning Into Love, by Elaine Mansfield

This is a book that is honest about Elaine and Vic’s life together, honest about the cancer that took his life and their struggle dealing with chemotherapy and interventions, and honest about grief. That’s what we want from a memoir when matters of life and death are involved. We don’t want sugar. Sugar doesn’t give us real hope. Sugar melts away when tears begin to fall. We want truth because we know that one day we will face what they have gone through, and we want to know how to act.


* If you would like to read the rest of this post, let me know and I’ll send it to you. *

6 comments:

  1. Dear Mark,
    Thank you for this beautiful review of Leaning into Love. I just wrote a comment but it disappeared when I posted it, so in case this is a repeat, please delete it.
    I especially loved your thoughts about the balance of Physical, Spiritual, and Heart. All essential and all askew after someone we love dies. So, bit by bit, we build a new structure. This reminds me of the cairn my sons and I built where Vic’s ashes are buried. It’ s large and looks precarious, but it’s still standing strong 6 ½ years later. So am I.
    Thank you again for your generous and loving reading of Leaning into Love.
    With gratitude,
    Elaine

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thank you, Elaine, for sitting down in the midst of your grief and doing the hard work of finding the right words so that we could share your journey and learn more about our own.

    ReplyDelete
  3. A wonderful review and a new appreciation for the balance to this book. Before and after; heart-head-hands; love and loss.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Jill, I also thank you and your staff for helping Elaine's book get published so that we could read it and be moved.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I just wanted to thank you, Mark, for this thorough, touching and thoughtful review of what I also consider to be an amazing book. And my thanks to Elaine for writing it, too. ♥

    ReplyDelete