A Season of Grief (Southern Tier Editions) - Softcover

Valentine, Bill

Softcover

ISBN 10: 156023573X ISBN 13: 9781560235736

Publisher: Routledge, 2006

Synopsis

This unique book celebrates a long-term, interracial relationship and details the everyday struggles of a surviving partner trying to carry on in a radically changed world.

A Season of Grief chronicles the author's emotional descent after the violent death of his partner of 21 years. Bill Valentine's journal of fear, anger, denial, and loneliness captures the glimmers of hope, moments of serendipity, and mysterious coincidences that emerged from his full-time devotion to grief following the death of Joe Lopes. Lopes died along with 264 others when American Airlines Flight 587 crashed in November 2001 in route to the Dominican Republic. It was the second deadliest accident in U.S. aviation history.

He is a word always on my lips as I try to work him into a conversation. He is a memory that I strive to keep alive. So yes, in this sense, he is not gone. But in reality, he is. He is gone as my lover. He is gone as my life partner. He is gone as my soul mate, the only person to whom I periodically bared my soul. He is gone as my best friend, the only person to whom I ever attached that label. So pardon me while I still hang on to the notion that he is not here with me. Pardon me while I cling stubbornly to the insistence that he is gone.

Valentine's candid and thoughtful account of his heartbreaking efforts to make sense of his partner's death—and survive in a world without him—is by turns, funny, frightening, sobering, and surprising. In the nine months following the tragedy of Flight 587, Valentine finds every waking moment of his life affected by his partner's absence—from mundane household chores to major life decisions. A Season of Grief is a story told in darkness and light, of hurt and healing, love and loneliness, but mostly, of a man who learns to live with his partner's absence through the persistent, surprising evidence of his presence.

Our job on earth is to live with uncertainty, ambiguity, and hope. We are given a limited tool set but one, in my opinion, that's sufficient for the job. Sufficient to allow us to be engaged in life-to love, grieve, work, play, celebrate, and despair. We have a remarkable ability to rebound and grow. We have been granted the capacity for wonder and laughter—especially at ourselves. These last two gifts were bestowed generously on Joe and he, in turn, taught me how vital they are.

Making a strong case for gay marriage, A Season of Grief chronicles Valentine's struggles to be recognized as a surviving spouse, including a historic lawsuit with Lambda Legal Defense and Education fund against the New York State Workers Compensation Board. Valentine and Lopes took every conceivable step to formalize their relationship, including New York City Domestic Partnership, but the Workers Compensation Board and a New York State appeals court refused to recognize Valentine as a legal surviving spouse.

Grief doesn't come with a set of instructions. But A Season of Grief can help guide you through the lonely journey that follows the death of a loved one. Valentine's memoir is a testament to the healing power of reality and the enduring nature of love.

About this title

From the Author:

Losing Joe was the thing I feared the most.

I had known him for only five days when I told him I loved him. This was in 1980. I was twenty-six and didn’t know any better. I never could have guessed then how deeply I would love him twenty-one years later. Or how much I would fear for his safety.

He flew for American Airlines for 18 years, giving me ample material for a short story chronicling my anxieties as a flight attendant’s spouse. In December 2000, we celebrated when "Widow’s Watch" was published in the Baltimore Review. In the back of my mind was another fear—had I tempted fate by writing this story? How would I live with myself if something did happen to Joe?

But, he survived September 11th. Then, on November 12th, came reports of another crash. I turned on a cheap portable radio in my office and when I heard his flight number I screamed. It was my brief moment of private, unscripted grief. I looked up to find people standing in my doorway. I said, "My partner was on that plane."

From that moment on grieving became my full-time job. I hoped that by describing the darkness I could keep it from engulfing me. As a journal of a living grief, A Season of Grief chronicles the struggles of a surviving partner attempting to carry on in a radically changed world.

As a love story, A Season of Grief celebrates the long-term bonds between two men. Joe and I were married in every sense of the word except the narrow, legal one. In spite of this, virtually none of the protections that federal and state law provide surviving spouses were available to me.

As a meditation on the nature of loss, A Season of Grief is a testament to the healing power of reality, to the enduring nature of love, and to the mysteries that point beyond our temporal existence.

About the Author:

A Season of Grief is Bill Valentine's first published full-length work. He recently completed City Birds: A Year in the Life of New York's Birds and Birders. He is working on a collection of short stories. His stories have been published in Lynx Eye, the Marlboro Review, South Dakota Review, and The Baltimore Review among others.

About this edition

• Publisher: Routledge
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 156023573X
• ISBN 13: 9781560235736
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 222