THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN SEEDS AND STONES

by Rondi Lightmark ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 15, 2023

A woman recounts the year after she lost her husband to cancer in this grief memoir.

“A stone is a history, a seed a promise,” writes Lightmark at the close of her book, but they actually represent the same thing: testaments to enduring and healing from profound loss. The loss occurred in 1993, when the love of her life, Jim, died from cancer. Their union was cosmic, with the two meeting when they were both 33 years old at Emerson College in England in the early ’80s. Both were seeking something more—Jim, single and childless, wanted to pivot from architecture to teaching, and Lightmark, married at 18 with two teenagers, felt she had “never really grown up” and sought self-actualization. Jim imparted to the author a “deep, almost scary, thrill,” and though they returned to their lives in the United States separately, they kept in touch. Lightmark eventually divorced her first husband, and she and Jim married. They shared roughly a decade of joy, during which the author earned her bachelor’s degree, moved to Vermont, and welcomed the opportunity to co-teach kindergarten at a Waldorf school. But in 1992, a checkup found a cancerous mole on Jim’s back that eventually spread to his brain, and, as his life ended, the author tried to figure out how to live hers alone. While cherishing the love that had helped her grow, Lightmark recognized her self-actualization wasn’t complete. She returned to England and traveled to Scotland to attend a grief retreat; consulted with Quang, a Vietnamese doctor (whose story warrants a book of its own); and began gardening—all of which eventually led to a writing career and a phoenix-like renewal.

The memoir has a diaristic form split into three sections (“Body,” “Soul,” and “Spirit”), beginning in September 1993—when Jim was in a hospice—and carrying through to the first anniversary of his death, with a handful of end chapters that span the years since, culminating in an epilogue. Interspersed are recollections of the author’s dreams, rendered in italics, that are wounding as they often center on Jim’s impending or recent death. Emerson was founded largely on the anthroposophy teachings of philosopher Rudolf Steiner, and Lightmark comes back to his teachings throughout the book. They focus on spiritual development and the humanity of connections in this life and beyond. Amid so many memoirs about grief and loss, Lightmark’s work offers prose that deftly evokes the intensity of a bond severed: “How can Jim be gone when I have only to ask, and my mouth still knows how he tastes?...In a somewhere, the space between heart and thought, Jim is.” There are references to prominent grief texts, but Lightmark largely focuses on the minutiae of her own story. Jim never appears to truly leave her, and she recounts seeing him in dreams, feeling his presence, and holding him in her heart. Often the loss of loved ones cleaves a part of people, leaving them less than they were before, struggling toward a new normal. Easier said than done, but Lightmark’s healing came from embracing her situation and finding a new, fruitful path: “Death is not failure; death can be your best work.”

This moving, holistic elegy for a love gone too soon traces a survivor’s journey.

Pub Date: Feb. 15, 2023

ISBN: 9798987720905

Page Count: 278

Publisher: LightmarkArts

Review Posted Online: March 20, 2024

Review Program: Kirkus Indie

Categories:

BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | FAMILY & RELATIONSHIPS | GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR