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A review by kristianawithak
Losing Mum and Pup by Christopher Buckley
5.0
I knew that time was limited with my grandma, but I guess I didn't realize how limited. Isn't that the crux of life? We know that we do not have forever, but more often we act as if we do. As if we will not, one day, run out of time. Suddenly and surprisingly it is over.
The books I have been reading are about losing a spouse, losing a parent, losing a child, which only tells me that the pain will get so much worse and harder to bear one day. One day a greater grief than this will strike me, and I will never be able to prepare for it. I feel like the funeral preperations I have made are a sort of training that needed to take place. The part of me that wishes to prepare for the horrible future tells me that this will be harder, but at least you've had practice now. Perhaps some sort of dress rehersal.
Losing Mum and Pup was an unbelievable book. It gave me a great respect for Christopher Buckely, whose novels I have enjoyed reading, and it made me want to read William F Buckley Jr's (or WFB as I learned to call him) work.
William F Buckley Jr sailed across both the Atlantic and the Pacific oceans with his son. It makes me want to have children and do crazy awesome things with them.
I love the long quotes that pull from the events that unfolded. WFB's eulogy for his wife that was printed, but not spoken at her service was beautiful. The emails that Christopher includes are touching and a clear telling of the events that were playing out as his father was hospitalized. We can never prepare for the heartache that occurs in life, but we can grow and learn from it, and I know that God knows how I feel, he endured it all with and for us before.
Good amazing quotes:
(but first a note on quotes) I listen to 90% of the books I read. I love the beauty and art found in good writing. Sometimes I hear something so beautiful or interesting while I'm listening that I have to stop, rewind a few times and write down the quote. I include them because they are the things that 'jump off the page' to me, and if I were physically reading the book I would have read aloud to everyone I came into contact with, sighed and exclaimed 'isn't it beautiful?!'
"We must do what we can to bring hammer blows to the bell jar that protects dreamers from reality."
"A man must do three things in life, write a book, plant a tree, have a son"
"I know that my redeemer liveth" - WFB's chosen Epitaph
"I may have written [this book:] out of a more basic need as an excuse to spend more time with them, before letting them go, if indeed one ever really lets them go."
"The grown ups were all leaving."
I have been struck with the realization that in Grandma's passing an entire generation is gone, on both sides of my family. My parents and their siblings are now the oldest generation, they are the grandparents, the retired ones. I had never given much thought to always having three living generations of our family, and for much of my life we had four, but now it is just me and my mom. My grandma's generation is gone. Her past and future have met their end. I have never felt more like an adult.
This book was wonderful, and I can't wait to own it, to go through the beautiful parts again and to read aloud to those sitting near me.
The books I have been reading are about losing a spouse, losing a parent, losing a child, which only tells me that the pain will get so much worse and harder to bear one day. One day a greater grief than this will strike me, and I will never be able to prepare for it. I feel like the funeral preperations I have made are a sort of training that needed to take place. The part of me that wishes to prepare for the horrible future tells me that this will be harder, but at least you've had practice now. Perhaps some sort of dress rehersal.
Losing Mum and Pup was an unbelievable book. It gave me a great respect for Christopher Buckely, whose novels I have enjoyed reading, and it made me want to read William F Buckley Jr's (or WFB as I learned to call him) work.
William F Buckley Jr sailed across both the Atlantic and the Pacific oceans with his son. It makes me want to have children and do crazy awesome things with them.
I love the long quotes that pull from the events that unfolded. WFB's eulogy for his wife that was printed, but not spoken at her service was beautiful. The emails that Christopher includes are touching and a clear telling of the events that were playing out as his father was hospitalized. We can never prepare for the heartache that occurs in life, but we can grow and learn from it, and I know that God knows how I feel, he endured it all with and for us before.
Good amazing quotes:
(but first a note on quotes) I listen to 90% of the books I read. I love the beauty and art found in good writing. Sometimes I hear something so beautiful or interesting while I'm listening that I have to stop, rewind a few times and write down the quote. I include them because they are the things that 'jump off the page' to me, and if I were physically reading the book I would have read aloud to everyone I came into contact with, sighed and exclaimed 'isn't it beautiful?!'
"We must do what we can to bring hammer blows to the bell jar that protects dreamers from reality."
"A man must do three things in life, write a book, plant a tree, have a son"
"I know that my redeemer liveth" - WFB's chosen Epitaph
"I may have written [this book:] out of a more basic need as an excuse to spend more time with them, before letting them go, if indeed one ever really lets them go."
"The grown ups were all leaving."
I have been struck with the realization that in Grandma's passing an entire generation is gone, on both sides of my family. My parents and their siblings are now the oldest generation, they are the grandparents, the retired ones. I had never given much thought to always having three living generations of our family, and for much of my life we had four, but now it is just me and my mom. My grandma's generation is gone. Her past and future have met their end. I have never felt more like an adult.
This book was wonderful, and I can't wait to own it, to go through the beautiful parts again and to read aloud to those sitting near me.