Linda Sue Park has taken the childhood experiences of Salva Dut and crafted his courageous feat of fleeing on foot from the war in Southern Sudan in the mid-eighties, having lost his family, into a book that reads more like a novel than a biography.  At the same time, she jumps to 2008 to recount the story of Nya, another Sudanese child who must walk miles every day to fetch water for her family.

Park captivates her audience with a story about perseverance and persistence.  She guides us along Salva’s journey across the Nile River and through the Akobo Desert into Ethiopia, crossing the Gilo River twice – the second time swimming for his life to avoid being shot by soldiers or eaten by crocodiles, then back through part of the Abobo Desert and towards Kakuma in Kenya.  Salva does finally bring himself to safety as he arrives at Ifo refugee camp, Kenya, in 1992, seven years after that fateful day in school when his teacher ordered the class to, “Go! All of you, now!”

The vivid writing of the author will almost allow you to feel Salva’s physical and emotional pain, while releasing endorphins as he triumphs over every endured adversity, including extreme thirst and hunger, and ends up in a position to help Sudanese people 24 years later.  Beginning both the story of Salva and the one of Nya more than 20 years apart, Park brings it all together at the end in 2009, when we learn how our past can help shape the future of fellow humans.

An absolute gem to be shared with the entire family!

First comment: Eye-opening!

I would never have known to buy a copy of Lost Connections, nor had I previously heard about it.  However, last week, when I saw it sitting on top of a pile of books that were bequeathed to me by relatives who have recently visited, I decided, in my plight to diversify my reading, to give it a go.  If you recall from my second review this year, I do not ordinarily like self-help prose, but this book is well worth picking up and perusing.

A sufferer of depression from childhood, Johann Hari has done justice to the pandemic problem of mental health by thoroughly researching his topic and laying it out in a most comprehensive and cohesive way.  Traveling extensively around the world, interviewing countless people affected by depression, their doctors and many other scientists, Hari set out to uncover, “The real causes of depression – and the unexpected solutions.”  He has a most engaging writing style, even drawing in the readers who don’t suffer from depression, and he makes you want to share his findings with every person who struggles with mental health, despite being on anti-depressants, along with professionals who prescribe these drugs.

Johann Hari delves into depressed people’s disconnections from their work, other people, meaningful values, childhood trauma, status and respect, the natural world, and a hopeful or secure future.  He discusses the real role of genes and brain changes, and then he brings it all home by showing us how to make the reconnections most people, even the happy ones, have lost in the last several decades.

As I was poring over one page after the other, I’d often be thinking to myself, Okay, but he hasn’t considered x or y.  However, the next thing I’d know, the author would answer my thoughts.  This happens throughout the book, demonstrating to me that Hari is not only thorough when it comes to his work, but he clearly has a capacity to connect to people, one of the very solutions he insists is key to combating depression.

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OMG what were these women thinking?

This might certainly be your first thought, once you’ve started reading about the three women in Three Women.  It took eight years of research and writing for author Lisa Taddeo to compile this non-fiction book about the sex lives of three ladies: Lina, Maggie and Sloane.  Lina breaks up her passionless marriage by having an affair with her ex of eons ago; high school student, Maggie, threatens to break the marriage of her English teacher; and Sloane is very happily married to her husband, who is turned on by watching his wife have sex with other men, some within a threesome and some of whom are married.  Everyone has children, except for Maggie, a child herself.

Written in the most delicious literary prose I’ve come across in a long time, Taddeo pulls us into the three stories, leaving us insatiable at the end of each chapter as she switches from one protagonist to the other, much like the protagonists themselves, whose insatiable desires never seem to be completely satisfied.

The actions of Lina, Maggie and Sloane might make you bonkers, truly.  It seems as if their choices are informed and that they should know better.  However, as Taddeo reveals their pasts and explores deep and disturbing realities, which surround each of their circumstances, your sentiments might be replaced by rage towards an inherently misogynistic past that has plagued our planet for millenniums.

I did not want to stop reading this book and only did so because there were no more pages.  Simply put, Three Women will leave your head spinning and you’ll immediately want to lend it to a friend, provided she/he will get through it within a couple days, giving you someone with whom you may discuss it.

How apt it is that while reading Lady Glenconner’s book about the dramas she and Princes Margaret endured throughout their lives, the British Press have been creating quite their own histrionics over Meghan’s and Harry’s choice to pull back from their royal life and duties.  Their exit is hardly surprising and Lady in Waiting gives some insight into the fabricated tales published by newspapers, which can destruct the very core of any human being.

Anne Coke (pronounced Cook) was born into aristocracy, grew up with Queen Elizabeth and Princess Margaret, married Colin Tennant (he became the 3rd Baron Glenconner), with whom she had five children, and went on to become a trusted Lady in Waiting for almost thirty years to Princess Margaret.

Anne takes us into the depths of retrospection of the fascinating life she led, making us belly-laugh in one chapter, then wrenching at our hearts with despair in the next.  Her marriage to an outrageously flamboyant and moody man, Colin, alone would send the best of us into a tailspin, as she spares no details of his excessive behaviour.  His immense wealth afforded them a life full of dichotomy between the extravagance of their aristocracy in the UK and the lack of basic utilities, like plumbing and electricity, in Mustique, the Caribbean island which Colin bought in the 50s and eventually catapulted to fame.  What their wealth did not protect their family from were tragedies.  Lady Glenconner writes about these with clarity, her British stiff-upper-lip barely wavering, and you almost have to re-read the pages to make sure your eyes didn’t just deceive you.

Throughout the years, Princess Margaret remained a very close friend to the couple and this book is as much about her life as it is about theirs.  A petite woman in stance alone, Princess Margaret was apparently assertive and confident, fiercely loyal to her sister and the Crown, and thrived in her independent freedom during the countless times she spent in Mustique at the villa gifted to her by Colin Tennant.  One wonders if she had been a young person in this century instead of the last, would she have shed tradition and protocol for a more permanent pathway of freedom, like her great-nephew Harry is choosing to do now.

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I’m usually not a fan of self-help books, or navel-picking reads, as my mother calls them.  The reason for this is because one can fall into the trappings of self-hatred and inadequacy, taking the proclamations and advice of authors as gospel.  I’m not implying that the authors’ intentions are such, as I do believe there are many who simply want to help us.  However, all 7.2 billion people in the world couldn’t possibly fall together under the same umbrellas of wisdom in any of these books.  Many may read one book and relate to it, others may not.

According to Gary Chapman, PhD, and the late Dr. Ross Campbell, each child has their own love language, which he or she responds to the best: 1. Physical Touch; 2. Words of Affirmation; 3. Quality Time; 4. Gifts; 5. Acts of Service.  While all children, and all people for that matter, may respond positively to all five of these things, one will stand out from the rest and make them feel the most loved.

Champman is the bestselling author of The 5 Love Languages® series and helps many families form lasting relationships amongst themselves through counseling, seminars, radio programmes and his books.  Dr. Campbell worked as a clinical psychiatrist for more than 30 years, specializing in the parent-child relationship.  He also wrote How to Really Love Your Teenager and How to Really Love Your Adult Child.

Whilst reading The 5 Love Languages® of Children, I couldn’t help but feel and see how I have gone wrong.  I fell into the very trap of self-degradation, which is the reason why I don’t read these books!!  That said, I have been raising my kids with so much love, giving them the attention and the time I believe they need.  What I’ve come to realize is that there are gaps my husband and I must fill, and these might be negating even the positive part of our parenting.

This book is not a long read and is quite simple in its formula, so it is one I’d recommend to parents, particularly if you have noticed your child acting up in any way, however small.  It was recommended to me by my son’s grade two teacher, who is one of the most thoughtful, kind and responsive teachers I’ve come across.  This woman seems to live by responding to each of her students according to their individual love languages, so kudos to Champman and Campbell for writing the book and sharing it with the world.  It’s not only made me pay attention to the love language of each of my boys, but it’s even given me food for thought when it comes to my husband, myself and our relationship as a couple.

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Secrets We Kept depicts the very essence of living conditions in rural parts of Trinidad, allowing you to almost detect the stench of extreme poverty, from which Krystal A. Sital’s grandmother sought to escape. “House, lan, and motohcah,” my grandmother says, “dah is all meh evah wanted.”  This sentiment is repeated several times in Sital’s tale of her grandparents’ and parents’ courtships and domestic unions, demonstrating the hold the men had over women and their daughters.  The emotional and physical brutalities these women were forced to endure from their husbands was considered the lesser of the evils on offer.  The women in general didn’t stand up for one another, however, because there was a constant threat that they would suffer a beating of their own if they did.

When this book begins with Sital’s grandmother, Rebecca, hesitating to give the American doctors the go-ahead for treating Shiva’s (Sital’s grandfather) life-threatening condition, the reader might well conclude that this old Trinidadian woman is heartless, as her children believed her to be.  However, Krystal is certain there is more to the story.  Isn’t there always?

Amidst descriptive renditions of aromatic Trinidadian home-cooking, heavily influenced by their Indian ancestors, Sital’s mother, Arya, along with Rebecca, release and reveal the years of torture they both faced at the hands of Shiva.  We discover that history does in most ways repeat itself, as Arya sought the same, “house, lan, and motohcah,” like her mother, in an unrequited quest to escape the subservience of women within their culture.  Some of the prose is hard to read, not because parts are written in raw Trinidadian vernacular, but because the physical battering these women took is difficult to stomach.  That said, every adult human being should read this book, or at least one like it, for it relates the reality of millions, perhaps even billions, of women and girls around the world.

Whilst poring over the pages of this well-written book, one cannot help but feel the need to be a better parent and person, wondering if the last time you scolded your own child might have been a little harsh, for the damage could be irreparable.

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It’s been over seven months since my last post.

I have allowed the business of life to get in the way of what I love to do the most, write.  Okay, that’s not completely true, I love being a mother the most, however, a woman can lose herself in doing everything for everyone around her, therefore losing the best part of what makes her a mother in the first place.

I spent the two and a half months after Easter ensuring that my (at the time) fifth grader would be at his best when taking the grade 5 part of Jamaica’s new PEP examinations at the end of June, which will ultimately ensure he gets into a good traditional high school, while also being there for my (at the time) first grader as he navigated his school exams.  Summer came and our house was gloriously inundated with houseguests and visitors for two months.  My sons and I calculated that we did 21 day trips to beaches and waterfalls, amidst also doing Marine Camp, piano lessons, Taekwondo training & exams, swimming at the yacht club, having friends over for dinners, board games, lots of novel reading, some Netflix watching and Minecraft/Roblux playing!  We made new friends and solidified longtime friendships, we spent quality family time together and even managed to get lots of rest throughout all the madness!  Then the new school year began and I had to figure out how the schedules of a six grader and a second grader could work best, without compromising their needs and wishes, sleep and nutrition.  The sixth grader is in full throttle, preparing for the seven remaining PEP examinations, taking place between the upcoming February and April, staying at school until 6pm three nights per week, while still continuing with his after school piano lessons and Taekwondo training.  We are never home before dark during the week, much to the detriment of the second grader, who is exhausted, as he has to accommodate this craziness.  That said, I am as proud of him as I am of his older brother.  He too has sports and music to fit into his own schedule.

So, here we are, almost in December, with my health diminishing and weight dropping off me when there isn’t much to fall off me in the first place.  My patience levels are down, causing bursts of anger which aren’t good for my boys, my husband, nor myself.  I am trying my best to cope with tired children, who still manage to get to sleep by 7:30pm by the way.  I am trying my best to cope with the crying and arguments between these two small people, due to their exhaustion at the end of the day.  I am trying my best to spend some time with my husband, though I am also often asleep by 7:30pm.  I am trying my best not to see red every time the day doesn’t go exactly as I’d like.

At the risk of sounding too liberal for the likes of homophobic bigots in Jamaica, I declare that the recent behaviour of a large group of school boys, in a once highly regarded high school in our capital, was abhorrent and should not go unpunished.

Much of our nation is up in arms about the insulting chants these boys projected, during their assembly, about the boys in another high school in Kingston.  And we should be angry, not only for the damage it does to the children in our country, but also the damage it does to the LGBTQ community the world over.  The immorality here is twofold: firstly, the phrase used by these boys, to pinpoint and insult gay men, is an age-old derogatory term, which we in Jamaica must obliterate.  Secondly,  the intention of the phrase depicts homosexuality as being a bad thing.

(By the way, the principal, the board, the staff and the parents are very much responsible for what happened.)

We Jamaicans wish to be modern, striving to have access to the internet and social media, using the latest smartphone and tablet.  We want our nation to be recognised internationally for producing great athletes, musicians, artists and scholars.  We boast about the beauty of our land and sea, enticing visitors to make Jamaica their number one vacation choice.  We travel abroad and proudly announce where we are from, flashing our passports to prove just how cool we are.  Yet, here we are, still behaving like intolerant barbarians from centuries ago.

Imagine what could happen when news gets out and reaches the international stage:  “Jamaicans are a bunch of small-minded assholes,” they might think.  “We’ll support and sponsor your star musicians and athletes, provided they denounce Jamaica, because we don’t want anything to do with a country where such atrocious acts are accepted or swept under the table.”  Not good for us, right?!

Wake up Jamaica!  We cannot have it both ways.  Stop picking only the cherries that suit your palate.  We are either living in the twenty-first century, or we are not.  If we want to be part of the first world and its luxuries, which we currently crave, then we must embrace it all and be tolerant of all religions, beliefs, sexual orientations, choices and every race.

It goes without saying that kindness must be the motivation behind everything.  In fact, think about it for a few moments, if kindness was considered before each action, the world would be rid of so many problems, bigotry included.

Death is a sure thing in life, but we are rarely, if ever, prepared for it.

My grandparents lost their daughter in a car accident in the early 1970s.  She was in her early thirties, the older sister to my dad and their two younger sisters.  It was devastating for them all and I don’t know how they managed to carry on with life, but I suspect they did so because they had to.  They had to continue for one another and for the little people who were recent additions to the family.  Less than twenty years later, I was almost fifteen.  I recall my grandmother saying that no one knew what it was like to lose a child, unless you’d lost one yourself.  That was all.  No words could be used to reply to this statement, as her words had said it all.  She had lost a child.  My Dad and his sisters had lost their sister.  It was a chilling moment for me.  It still is.

The loss of any loved one is crushing.  The inexplicable pit you feel inside yourself leaves you confused and helpless.  There are no explanations, regardless of the cause of death.  Religious people say it’s “god’s will”, which seems to help some, but it doesn’t actually take away the pain of missing the person who has died, the pain of knowing the loved one was robbed of his or her life.

For atheists, like myself, the words “god’s will” are empty and can be maddening to those who are in mourning.  Sometimes, it is best just to acknowledge that the death of a loved one sucks.  It sucks.  Whether it’s your child, sibling, parent, grandparent, spouse, cousin, friend, colleague, or your ex, it sucks.

What on earth do you do next?  How do you move on from this?  No one knows, not unless they’ve had a similar experience, and even then, no two people nor situations are the same.  In fact, no two moments are the same, so what works for you one minute, might not work for you the next.  Each second that passes is another second you survived and it’s horrible, until one day it might not feel as horrible.  When does that day come?  You don’t know, until it does.

What can those of us around you do?  We can be there to listen, to talk, to embrace, to scream, to cry, to sit and just be present.  We can remember that after funerals and memorials, you are still mourning each moment you live without your loved one.  We can check in on you, for years to come.  We will be present when you need us and even when you say you don’t need us.

emmadaltonbrown@gmail.com

You should be celebrating, like everyone else, but you’re not.  They took out that benign brain tumour; they cut out the mass pressing on your spinal cord; they removed both of your breasts; they zapped or poisoned the lingering cancer cells; they prevented your heart from failing; they found drugs to keep your autoimmune illness at bay, sort of.  Yet you know it’s not the end.  It will never be the end.

So, the synapses in your brain are working overtime.  After all, your brain is in charge of everything you do, say, think and feel.  It speaks to every muscle, nerve and cell in your body.  Your brain is the control centre of you.  It is making you acutely aware of what is going on in every part of your body.  This is not the case for everyone, but when you’ve woken up inside the realisation that your body has failed to be what the healthy version of it should be, your brain suddenly becomes wise to just how precious health and life are.  You no longer give a fuck about a chipped fingernail, unwaxed leg hair, the fool who disagrees with your ethics, the argumentative colleague, the traffic jam, the broken plate…..you get my drift.

Everyone else is still celebrating, however.  You had a close call.  The outcome could have been so much worse.  You could have died.  You are still alive.  Yeah, they cured you!  And that is what other people see.  They are happy.  It makes them feel much better to know that you are okay.  And to be honest, that’s okay.  Why shouldn’t they get to feel good about all of this?  Why should they be burdened with a bit of realism?  You decide you will simply keep your mouth shut and play along with it.  Perhaps doing so will cure you completely.  You will remain in remission forever and nothing bad will come back, nor grow back.

Positivity and hope absolutely go a long way when it comes to making the most of enjoying each moment you are alive, and you can continue to have a wonderful and joyful life.  But the reality of medical science remains.  It should not be dismissed.  Prognoses have been studied and you cannot avoid how these make you feel.  You need the support of those who love and care about you.  They need the information, so that they may help you.  Hiding it all under the rug that rests beneath your bed is not realistic.  The mound of worry will soon begin to show.

It is not your responsibility to make everyone else feel better.  Trust me, they will survive this!  In fact, you will find that some people do want to be there for you, whenever and forever.  Be wise and let them be there, because your journey will be long, even if it’s shorter than you’d have liked.

Be Wise: Let People Be There For You

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