THE EXCERPT

My mother taught me to how to shoot. We had one gun in our house, a musket with a club butt that had three initials and a number carved into it. “This is a gun for a man,” she said, “and you are nearly a man now.” She showed me how to hold the gun and balance it, stepping back with my right foot and putting the left forward, raising the butt high on my right shoulder and looking along the barrel at a stump in the field. My mother was a lean woman, and when she aimed the gun it looked like an extension of her, taut and strong, browned by the sun. She watched me carefully as I rested the gun at an angle on the ground, poured powder down the barrel, and rammed the wadding and ball to the breech. She showed me how to prime the gun, to halfcock and push the hammer, and place enough powder in the pan to catch a spark.

When she shot the gun her fingers gripped the barrel like a vise and she leaned forward, aggressively, taming the fire that blasted from the muzzle while hardly flinching, spraying splinters from the stump by force of gunpowder and determination. When I pulled the trigger the barrel jumped and knocked my arm, bruising the bone in my shoulder, and the power and blast of flame impressed upon me that this was not a thing of innocence. Black haze and the dry acrid smell of sulfur and wood smoke lingered in the air.

When we finished shooting I hacked at the stump with an axe and we pried out the clusters of lead, to melt and remake into new shot.

“Am I good enough to hunt?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said. “Soon.”

When that day came we awoke early before the sun rose and walked beyond the field to the woods, to a place where there were many white-tailed deer, where tracks pocked the soil and you would sometimes hear the deer brush against leaves or snap a twig before you saw them. There were short hills with rocky banks and clusters of boulders big enough to form small caves, and there were many long branches of laurel trees, and these were good places to sit quietly and wait for deer to come close.

I carried the gun, which was loaded, and my mother carried the axe and a tin water bottle on a cord across her shoulder. We were downwind of the deer run and our steps were quiet; my mother pointed to a cove of lush laurel branches that would give us cover. As she walked toward them a black mass moved from a bank of stones, slowly and close by, not yet aware of our presence. I lifted the gun and pulled back the cock.

“Mother,” I said.

As I stared down the long barrel at my target, I knew she had turned and was looking at the bear.

“Yes.”

The gun kicked back as a blast of fire and smoke shot from the muzzle. For a moment I could not see the bear, but I saw my mother holding the axe with both hands, ready to strike if it lunged at us. Then the bear fell on its front legs, its head against the ground. Its thick hind legs tried to push forward, and it rubbed its snout against the dirt while exhaling a wet guttural groan between gasps for breath.

It was the first animal I killed. We stood there, ready with the axe, and then sat down on some rocks. My stomach was unsettled, and I coughed and emptied it behind a tree. My mother gave me water. We watched the bear for a long time; even after it was dead its belly shuddered. Then we dragged it to the field and got a horse and wagon, and brought it home.

Years later, on the nineteenth day of September in ’77, at the north edge of an open field called Freeman’s farm, I stood partially hidden by a large maple tree adorned with orange and yellow leaves, aiming my musket at a man who crouched behind a tree stump and a pile of stones, whose white breeches were muddied at the knees but whose red coat seemed bright and unblemished. He had fired a shot at a rifleman to my left, before he saw me, and when his eyes met mine he jumped to his feet and leveled his bayonet. I did not hesitate; and through the fire of the muzzle blast I saw him hit, bending in half at the waist for a fleeting instant, his hands flailing outward, as if, in his final moment, he was presenting himself to the king. At the same time a rapid spatter of shots cracked ahead and to my right, where a band of British skirmishers were met by Major Dearborn’s light infantry amid the tall oak and white pine at the edge of the woods.

On my left one of Colonel Morgan’s riflemen crawled toward me, his brown coat and knee-high green leggings bloodied. Another ran over and stooped beside him. “Pull him back to the log house,” I hollered. The riflemen had no bayonets, but their long rifles were far-reaching and accurate. They hid behind the rail fence and among the trees taking careful aim, looking foremost for the shimmer of a silver or brass regimental gorget hanging on a soldier’s chest, signifying his officer’s rank. Their shots from the fence line cracked loudly, and behind us I heard drum rolls, calling more of our troops to meet the enemy.

Quickly I reloaded and moved forward, passing the British soldier on the ground, certain he was dead and not wanting to see what I had done. At the edge of the clearing British skirmishers emerged from the trees across the field, which was riddled with stumps and fallen timber. They had come up from the river road by climbing the great ravine, lightly equipped but thwarted by the mud on the steep incline and the streams they had crossed. They assembled into their familiar order and moved, seeming ill at ease, toward two farm buildings in front of them. On a signal I did not hear, Morgan’s riflemen opened heavy fire and a torrent of shots rattled the air. The skirmishers quickly returned fire but many of them fell in the field. The riflemen saw this and yelled, rising up from their positions to a full-out charge as the British hesitated and then backed away, some turning and running.

The roll of drums grew louder, and Captain Van Swearingen, a Pennsylvanian, drew up on the left, waving his sword in the air and directing the fire as more than two hundred riflemen and light infantry scrambled through the trees to the edge of Freeman’s clearing.

I joined with my company from the Third New Hampshire. We quickly formed at the tree line and fired hurried volleys to cover the advance of the riflemen, who were rushing in waves into the field and following the retreat of the British skirmishers. Amid the gunshots there was desperate yelling from some of the fallen redcoats who tried to crawl from the clearing, and much hallooing from the riflemen, all of which was interrupted by the thunderous cough of a British fieldpiece that spit grapeshot into the riflemen’s left flank. Morgan’s men ran for cover among the stumps and timber and looked for the cannon, which revealed its location with a second blast that hit a cluster of men, felling them like crashing ninepins. Still, Morgan’s men fired at the redcoats from positions low and behind cover, but with the third cannon shot came a wave of red uniforms that saturated the woods across the field, revealing Johnny Burgoyne’s massed British line.

Across the clearing the whole tree line exploded at once and the air filled with shot. Many of Morgan’s men spun and fell, dropping their rifles and clutching their bellies and limbs. Both sides unleashed the fury of their arms, and the rhythm of volleys was lost in the loud and fiery crackle of incessant gunfire. Men in the field, both redcoats and riflemen, shouted for help or screamed in pain, while some tried pulling their bleeding comrades through the grass. From a cluster of trees to my left came a loud turkey call, an excited yelp and cackle that I knew was Colonel Morgan’s signal to his riflemen, directing them to fall back.

My light troops continued to fire, giving cover to the scrambling riflemen. British skirmishers also ran to their lines, but on their left a spasm of musket fire commenced, meant for the riflemen but wounding a number of redcoats. Those still standing kept running, but they were unsure where to go. A cannon roared a signal shot, and most of the shooting from the British line stopped. The skirmish had been a full-scale battle for half an hour or longer, but now the cacophony of gunfire gave way to the scuttle of armies regrouping and the moans and cries from the grassy field.

I looked for Captain Van Swearingen. In the clearing ahead of our far left flank he appeared to be wounded, and was being carried to the British line by a cluster of Indians. The several men with him were also taken as prisoners. We reloaded our muskets and exchanged tense shouting among us, but there was nothing we could do. The midday sun parched the field, and we heard the cries of the wounded begging for water and the pleas of the dying to end their suffering. At opposite sides of the clearing both armies hauled their injured soldiers to safety, but those in the middle were out of reach and we left them there. A few men from Putnam’s Regiment broke ranks and went into the field, taking what they could from the dead. Walking back toward a log hut behind us, I passed a horse lying on the ground with its front legs broken. Its belly twitched, but I knew there was no life in it.

2

All around the log hut the wounded were lying on the ground. Some were being bandaged and some were loaded into wagons and taken behind the lines to the field hospital. Coming up the road were many hundreds of men: the rest of the New Hampshire regiments, the Second and Fourth New York, two units of Connecticut militiamen, and others behind them. We knew the fight was not over, and there was much clamoring to prepare for what was coming.

A rifleman near me pointed to the road that led east toward the river, and called out, “General Arnold!” Several men quickly stood up from where they rested and looked down the line, shielding their eyes from the bright sunlight with their raised hands, as if saluting. On his chestnut stallion, Major General Benedict Arnold had galloped back from the picket guard of Jackson’s Regiment, where he had gone to summon volunteers to join the battle. Now he cantered alongside some three hundred of them while pointing his sword at the British lines and instructing the soldiers on their objectives.

“They are bringing up artillery,” he called out to them. “That will be our first target. We will take them from the enemy’s hands and make them our own.”

His voice was clear and authoritative, and his own excitement palpable.

“This is our battle!” he hollered, “And today we will conquer!”

A chorus of cheers went up from the men. Arnold spurred his horse and rode ahead to where Colonel Morgan was huddled with Colonel Scammel. He spoke briefly with them from his horse, then galloped farther up the line.

A munitions wagon brought musket cartridges, and we hurried to resupply. Goodwin, a private from my company, was hastily surveying the wounded. He looked up and caught my eye.

“Captain Wheatley,” he said, making his way toward me. “Have you seen Private Sullivan?”

“I have not,” I answered, gazing toward the wounded.

“He’s my cousin, my aunt’s only son. I’m to look after him.”

“When did you see him last?” I asked.

Goodwin was young, and his emotions twisted his face. “Could he be still in the field?”

“Listen to me,” I told him. “The best thing you can do right now is prepare for another fight. Sullivan will take care of himself. Get ready.”

“Yes, sir,” he said, and he walked back toward a wagon that carried the dead.

Men clustered around barrels of water, filling tin bottles and wooden canteens. The air was warm and the wounded had been placed in the shade, and as they were moved back behind the lines, the soldiers who were readying themselves for the next battle took those spots in the shadows. In the two hours since the skirmish at

Freeman’s farm our numbers had increased by more than a thousand men, and with this came a notion of strength. We were eager to know if we would attack, or await an attack from the British.

The answer came quickly enough. Across Freeman’s clearing, fieldpieces along the British line exploded with a deafening roar. Every man at once took his position. Ahead of us the blasts of artillery shook the earth and clouded the air. Just as we were set to march out from the cover of the trees and return to the field, General Arnold returned, galloping in front of the lines, waving his sword and pointing it toward our foe.

“Providence will give us this day,” he shouted, “for our cause is just!”

The men cheered loudly, and the roar of “Huzzah!” nearly matched the noise of the cannons.

With a preacher’s conviction, Arnold’s voice rose over the soldiers.

“Today we shatter our chains on the anvil of Liberty!”

A volley of musket fire exploded from across the field, but Arnold paid it no heed.

“For this land is ours, men, and no king shall have it!”

Hundreds of troops burst into a cheering frenzy. As his horse pranced anxiously, Arnold pulled the reins and saluted his army, then spurred the stallion and galloped down the line.

Drums rolled and Colonel Scammel gave his command, which ricocheted through the ranks in shouts among captains and sergeants:

“To the front! March!”

The clearing was not large and soon the armies were close enough for the unremitting fire of muskets to reap a crop of men. Officers shouted commands and the men rapidly loaded, fired, and reloaded.

“Front rank! Make ready!”

“Take aim! Fire!”

“Rear rank! Make ready!”

“Take aim! Fire!”

The Cornell University Press Podcast an interview with rachEl DickiNSoN, author of the LoneLiest PLaces hosted by Jonathan hall

The following is a transcript of an episode of 1869, the Cornell University Press podcast. It has been transcribed using AI software. Any typos, errors, or inconsistencies may be the result of the transcription or the natural pattern of the human voice and speech. If you wish to listen to the origial, search 1869 podcast through whicever podcast service you prefer.

Welcome to 1869, The Cornell University Press Podcast. I’m Jonathan Hall. This episode we speak with Rachel Dickinson, author of The Loneliest Places: Loss, Grief and the Long Journey Home. Rachel Dickinson is a travel writer, essayist, artist, and award winning author. She is the author of six other books, including American Dynasties, Notorious Reno Gang, and Falconer on the Edge. We spoke to Rachel about the physical, emotional, and spiritual journeys She took after the unimaginable and heartbreaking loss of her son to suicide, and how traveling in unfamiliar territory, and spending time deep in nature helped gradually bring some solace to her sadness. Hello, Rachel, welcome to the podcast.

Well, thank you for inviting me, Jonathan. I’m very happy to be here.

Well, it’s our pleasure. And I look forward to talking with you right now, about your book, The Loneliest Places: Loss, Grief and the Long Journey Home. Tell us how this book came to be.

Okay, um, well, now, almost 11 years ago, my son Jack, who was a 17 year old at the time, died by suicide. And it was a shock to everyone who knew him and particularly to his family. And I, prior to that had been a travel writer for quite a while and had written several books. And when Jack killed himself, I thought, I will never be able to write another word, I won’t be able to do anything. And for several years, that was true. I pretty much just sat in a chair, or I ran away from home, I had two modes, and one was to leave. And the other was to just stay but be completely isolated in a chair. But I did start writing. I did a lot of reading of other people’s literature about grief and loss, like Joan Didion, and CS Lewis. So, you know, I just would read widely and I wasn’t reading self-help boos, I was reading memoirs and people who are really trying to grapple with their grief through words. So I decided that I should try to just put down some thoughts and that just kept going and going, until I finally had almost enough for a book.

Well, you had, you had mentioned reading different authors to get their take on grief and you chose one of the greats TS Eliot, in the beginning of your book you state. TS Eliot wrote the line “These fragments I’ve shared against my ruins” toward the end of his 1922 poem, The Wasteland. And while there isn’t agreement on what exactly this line refers to, I like to think that the fragments are bits and pieces of our past we should be collecting to help make sense of the world around us. This is what I’ve done in The Loneliest Places. How did collecting these fragments of your past help you process the incomprehensible pain and grief of the loss of your son.

I knew that I felt much more comfortable kind of dwelling in the past, in a way. I live in Freeville, which is a tiny village outside of Ithaca. And five generations of my family have lived here. And but my family goes back in Tompkins County to a Revolutionary War deed, land deed from service in the Continental Army. So my family has been here forever and I, I really feel this place, but I feel it in a fragmentary way myself. And I drive through I recognize things, things remind me of other things in the past things that both I experienced or that my ancestors might have experienced. I am, I feel like the molecules of my very being, are really kind of entwined with the molecules that swirl around in my village. So it’s all fragmentary to me. And I knew that by trying to put some of these things together on the page, past history, family history, geological history, I might be able to make sense of what had happened to me .And then I didn’t know how that was going to work. But my instinct was to just try to write my way out of the whole thing. And so but it started as fragments, and including I spent one year writing really bad poetry. And none of that is included in the book. But it, it did help me with my visuals, I think, because I would sit at Dryden Lake, which is kind of like a big pond really near where I live. And I would just look at the birds and I watch the clouds. And I would sit there and just write down my, my little, these little fragments of things I had seen. So fragments became really a way that I was trying to deal with the past and move forward into the future, hoping they would all just coalesce at some point.

That’s beautiful. And thank you also for sharing your family history. I didn’t, I didn’t know the deep roots that your family has. I think it’s interesting because you there’s this, you mentioned in these deep roots, and every atom and cell in your body is connected to the land. And yet you also describe your father and yourself as peripatetic, which I had to look up, Greek for “walking about.” And I think that that’s interesting, that you learn to see more clearly by leaving your deep roots. And that is something that some people have more than others. You know, I think that in many ways, our, you know, ancestral past deep ancestors, you know, were nomadic. And but there’s also, you know, up until the modern day, there’s also the sense of pilgrimage. And that there’s, you know, the pilgrimage of the Australian walkabout or Homer’s Odyssey, or, you had mentioned you had spent some time on the island of Iona, and that there are pilgrims that go to that island. Tell us how this journey of way allowed you to have a journey back inwards.

I think initially, it started as a way to run away from home. Although I I had always been a very eager traveler and which led me to do travel writing in the first place. I I knew that I felt really comfortable when I was in these, what I call the loneliest places in some ways. So five weeks after Jack died, I found myself in the Falkland Islands, and this is 6000 miles away from home, it’s as far away from home as you can get basically, you know, way down south in the south, the South Atlantic Ocean. And this was a journey I had arranged in November. So like, you know, four months earlier, and all of these moving parts had to be put in place, I had an assignment to write about the 30th anniversary of the Falklands

Jonathan Jonathan rachel

War. So I was going there, you know, with the intent of really talking to people who had been alive, you know, when the island was invaded by the Argentinians and but I didn’t quite know what I was walking into. And I found that I loved loved the landscape. It was really reminded me of being like in, in the islands of in the Outer Hebrides, you know, very windswept landscape where it was just filled with animals like, you know, elephant seals, and really interesting. Penguins dip five different species of penguins. So it’s like the it was familiar, yet not familiar to me. But the one thing I did realize when I was there, that I would not be seeing jack out of the corner of my eye, I had gone to a place where he had never been, and for some reason, I kind of established this rule in my mind that if I was someplace Jack had never been I would never see him. And so that made traveling, really the only way to feel some relief of the just crushing grief and sorrow that accompany me when I was sitting at home. So but what I also found in Falkland Islands, it was ironic that I was there to really talk to these people who had been invaded. I just found that a whole lot of People going through post traumatic stress syndrome. And I would look at their faces, I’d listen to their stories. And I, my mind would wander as if you’d hear the breaking of the penguin behind you. And I would just think, Wow, I’m looking at someone who I recognize this. Look, this is someone who has been really damaged in some way, by something that happened to them that they will never get over. And I felt like I was looking in the mirror. So I didn’t always feel that way, obviously, when I went other places, but I did have this yearning to just get away. And periodically, and I know that it worried members of my family, I think they’re like, Why is she not home? Why is she insisting on going to the Falklands or to Iceland, or these various places, and I always just went to these very lonely places that had more nature than human habitation. So it made me feel better. That’s why I did it.

Yeah. That makes it makes it makes sense. I mean, it obviously didn’t make sense at the time necessarily, and your family, I read in the book there, what’s going on? Why is Rachel leaving us and it caused a rift within the family. But in hindsight, it certainly makes sense. Particularly, as you were saying earlier, you know, that with your family connection, your family history, the ancestors, that you could feel viscerally of many generations there, you couldn’t, can’t escape it that as you were saying that you could see Jack perhaps out of the corner of your eye, going to a place where Jack has never been reduces the odds of that happening. And that brings up the idea of a spiritual journey as well. And so I was really fascinated to hear of your visits to the spiritual community of Lilydale, which I’ve visited a couple of times myself as well. And I just find that place fascinating. And for those listeners that don’t know Lilydale it’s a community of spiritualists. I think it’s been around since the maybe mid 1800s. Or what was it?

Like? Yeah, probably 1880s

1880s. Okay.

Yeah, yeah.

It’s basically a place where a lot of spirit mediums are psychic mediums who have the potential to communicate to the other side, the veil, the other side. And yet you were connected with a medium name Drew Kali. And in the book, you said that he stated, while he was in trance, that the message I’m getting is for you to stop observing, and be willing to participate. And so I was curious writing in your book is, is doing that you know, you are observing and being self reflective, and participating in detailing your story and detailing your inner world to the outer world. And you’re also participating with a larger community. Now you’re sharing your story to the group rather than just keep it to yourself. And by doing so, you offer a way to help others who are trying to survive tragic events, suicide of a child or even though the individual as you were mentioning, in the Falkland Islands, so anyone that’s experienced a trauma, and you’re trying to live with the intense emotions that come from that. And in that vein, what spiritual insights are you willing to share that helped you or could help others find peace amongst the sadness?

Well, I grew up, I grew up in Freeville, the village I still live in, and I attended the Methodist church there. And when I was older, when I was an adult, I was the choir director. So but I never, I was never baptized, I never embraced it fully. I had this real problem in believing, you know, making that leap of faith, which is embracing faith itself. So I was more interested in kind of the rituals of religion. And I loved the music that was associated with the Methodist Church. But on the other side of my little village was a spiritualist camp, which was occupied in the summer with Mediums who would come and stay in these little cottages. But they would give readings at this tiny auditorium that was on the camps and we would just kind of stand in the back of the room as kids and just listen to what these mediums were saying. And it wasn’t it was just kind of this kind of cool parlor trick in a way when I was a kid. It was fascinating. I was I’m always fascinated with it. But when I got older, and I did have a chance to go to Lily Dale, and I’ve been there several times now like yourself, I, it’s like I can’t get enough of it, there’s something about being able to go from place to place to place in Lily Dale, where you will find mediums who have gathered at these places to give these little public readings, there would be like three mediums who would stand out at the Temple of Truth or the inspiration stump, and hello crowd, we’d be in front of them and a medium would look at someone been pointed at them and say, May I come to you. And then you have to answer aloud so they get a sense of your voice. And I got so I could figure out who were the really good mediums and who weren’t, by the kind of detail they were giving. And, you know, things that made sense to me, there were there were ones who I didn’t think were very good, who really were listening to various cues that they would get from what someone would say. So, you know, I knew to just keep my mouth shut, basically, and listen to what they were saying. But I really got a feeling that some of them just made shivers down my spine, because I knew what they were saying, had come from some place that was not known to me. And when Drew

Kali, I happened to be in a course taking a course from him on, you know, developing your mediumship as if I had any. I should be so lucky, I think. But he was talking to us about colors and auras and seeing various things. And he just stopped in the middle of this. And he pointed at me. And he said, I just have to tell you, I see this old band standing behind you. And he’s holding his head, and he’s not very tall. And he completely described my father. And, and he, he said, Did he die because of something with his head. And I said, Yes, he had a stroke. So I mean, like he and he gave me these little clues about who this person was. And it kept going. He said, well there other people crowding around, including there, someone I didn’t know the name that begins with J. And I was so thrown off by my father’s appearance. They said, Well, he was married five or six times, and all of the women he married, their names began with the letter J. And he said, That’s not it. This is someone who’s very musically gifted. And I said, Oh, could have been my mother, Jane, you know, completely forgetting that my son Jack was very musically gifted, and was somewhere in in the afterlife. And it wasn’t until much later that my cousin pointed out, he was coming to you to tell you about Jack gap was there and wanted you to participate more in life, basically. And so it was just this shocking revelation that I had been spoken to in some way. So it made me feel better that, like, I, it gave me some kind of proof that there was something beyond where I was, it kind of ripped at that veil that I always kept between myself and faith. It’s so I don’t know, you know, it’s my whole notion of spiritualism. And spirituality really comes from my relationship to nature, and to the land. And I have spent the last 10 years really observing both of those things, and really taking in the landscape of every place I go and noticing what’s around me, and what’s around the animals. And to me that that’s the real touchdown. And that’s the thing that I think really helped me get through this past decade more than anything else was being in so just being able to go outside and look I have a huge walnut tree in my backyard. And I one year I took a photo every single day from the same window of this walnut tree in this little playhouse and I put it on Facebook every day and Instagram. And I the walnut tree had a huge following at that point because and we would watch it go through the whole the change of the seasons and if I became so kind of entwined with this walnut tree. And for me, that’s what gave me kind of a feeling of grace and a feeling of just contentment in a way it was watching closely watching this one tree go through four seasons. So that’s where I turned to. And the spiritualism in spiritualist stuff is just kind of the icing on the top of the cake for me is the yummy part, you know that I get to go and just, I have no preconceived notions about this stuff at all. And I thoroughly enjoy it when I am at Lilydale I thoroughly enjoy it.

That’s great. That’s great. That’s beautiful. Oh, yeah, it’s so much to unpack. But yeah, we don’t we don’t need science to tell us this. But I know that, that there’s this whole idea of nature therapy or florist therapy, I think the Japanese call it forest therapy. And the scientific studies that they’ve done, they show I think they looked at cortisol levels and different indicators of stress. And they said just 10 minutes of being in nature, radically reduced people’s stress. Just hearing your story I love I love what you did. When you take a picture of the same scene over and over. I’ve seen people do that as well. But to have it tied to nature and seeing the the tree blossom, and then there’s its leaves and then the darkness of winter. Like it. It puts you in. I think why nature one of the reasons why nature is so healing is that you realize that there is this natural intelligence and there’s a natural cycle. And we’re a part we are even though we like to think some of us more so that we are somehow removed from nature. We’re not we are nature, we are part of this, this whole continuum.

Yeah, like watching the life cycle of this tree is very interesting to me. And I’ve watched it grow. We’ve lived in the same house for 20 years. And so I’ve really witnessed 20 years worth of growth on this tree. And I’ve also witnessed 20 years of how it the effects of living with a wall, a black walnut tree in particular, because you can’t grow certain things that are within its range shadow. So I have a garden that I have to keep moving back as the tree grows larger. And that’s been fascinating to me just like okay, you know, it’s doing its thing.

Yeah, yeah.

It has a lot of territory. There’s a lot of territory there at this point. So I’ve just loved that. There’s an I do feel completely at ease. When I’m by the walnut tree. It is my tree. There’s no doubt about it. But I, you know, I’d love walking through any kind of natural environment and always aware that I could break my ankle everywhere, you know, because it’s like, Okay,

We had a black walnut in our yard and the squirrels would Oh, my God, they were some of the biggest squirrels in the area.

Oh, yeah. They would throw walnuts at you.

They could target you. They were like experts. If I was underneath there, they would, they would find a way to try to drop them on me. I couldn’t believe it.

Exactly. It’s like, why are you wasting those? It’s like, up there. Yeah, we I’ve loved watching the squirrels, but we have gray and red squirrels here. And we also have one black squirrel, which has been fascinating. And they all just kind of share this tree during certain seasons of the year. And it’s it’s great to watch. And the birds are amazing as well.

Nice. Nice. One last question I had was, you know, I do think that as you were saying before that you sharing your story has had the opportunity to help others who are going through similar situations. If you had an opportunity to meet someone who has gone through what you have done, gone through or experienced some sort of trauma, and you were handing them your book. Do you have any... what would you say to them?

I would say this is one person’s experience of going through the worst

Jonathan Jonathan rachel

thing that can ever happen to a parent. And I feel like there are things in this book that really touch on universal truths. And that I found that I was soothed by reading other people’s memoirs about their journey through these, through this terrible time, and watching how they grew stronger over a period of time, that’s my hope for this book is that people will pick this up and say, they do say, oh my god, it’s, you know, you start out is just so intense. And then I, as time goes on, the writing gets a little looser, their humor comes into it, you know, a, you could, it’s literally like watching me unfurl from being, you know, tight, like a pine cone for a lot of it. And I finally they just kind of relax the little things on the pine cone, and I let more of the world interact with me and me interact with the world. And I think this is something that everyone goes through this just I have a different way of saying it. And so there are a lot of books on grief out there. But each one has its own little way of talking about it. And I’m hoping that the way I describe grief and my journey will be helpful to someone else.

That’s great. That’s great. Thank you for sharing your story bringing us on your journey. And I know your words have helped bring healing to yourself, and they will certainly will do the same for the many readers of your book.

Thank you, Jonathan. I really appreciate your kind words about the book.

That was Rachel Dickinson, author of the Loneliest Places: Loss, Grief and the Long Journey Home