I didn’t write The Long Walk Home as a story of hope for people who have suffered the death of a spouse, but an awful lot of people seem to think I did, and that’s just fine with me. My character, Alec, takes care of his dying ex-wife and then travels to Wales to honor her wish to have her ashes scattered atop a mountain they’d climbed together years earlier, a mountain above a valley that felt like home to her. The fact that she’s his “ex” is a technicality; though divorced, they still were each other’s dearest partner and closest friend. And if you’ve read elsewhere on this website, you know that I know something about loss and grief. Alec’s experience was my own.

But I was not prepared for the outpouring of emails from readers who, like Alec, have lost the person closest to them. So many people have shared with me their own stories and thanked me both for honoring the loss of a loved one—and for suggesting that new love is still possible.

I was so moved by these letters that I went online to see what help is available to those whose husband or wife has died. Oh sure, there’s guidance on dealing with the stages of grief. And there’s plenty of financial and legal advice. But about life after grief? Precious little.

Here’s what my own experience has taught me. First, grief is constructive; it’s part of the way we honor the memory of who and what we’ve lost. But it also can become addictive. The baby boomer generation website, www.eons.com, has a wide range of online discussion groups and one of them is “Death of a Spouse.” It’s a safe and supportive place to go to share your grief with others who have gone through the same experience. I’ve posted there myself in the past. But I’ve also read posts from folks who, ten years after the death of their spouse, still haven’t moved his or her clothes out of the bedroom closet! I may make a few enemies by saying this, but it seems to me that the fact that your beloved has died doesn’t mean you have to die, too. There is another website that explores the challenges and rewards of seeking life and love after the death of a spouse. It’s www.widowswearstilettos.com and it’s thoughtful, interactive, wise, and—as the URL suggest, is not unwilling to be a little playful. Check it out.

If you’ve lost a spouse—for that matter, even if you’ve just been through a divorce—there will be any number of well-meaning people who will tell you, after a while, that it’s “time to move on.” Easy for them to say, right? The plain fact is that only you will know when that time has come. But it’s also true that you have to be willing to open the door to it. Trying to move on before you’ve opened that door is only gonna get you a bruised nose. But opening the door and then refusing to peer outside may be even more painful in the long run. Why? Because love is out there. Yes, it is. Think of it this way: When your beloved dies, that love doesn’t turn to ashes. Its energy is released back into the world. And if—when the time is right—you are ready to step out into that world, it will find you again.

I speak from experience. Some months ago, I was out walking a friend’s dog on the island where I live and met a woman who was walking her dog, too. I wasn’t looking for her. She wasn’t looking for me. But the love I’d lost a while back found me again. Hers did too. And we’re together now. It happens. It happens when you least expect it. It happens when that door is open and you step through it.

The door has a sign on it. The sign says, “Hope.”

Some of you wonderful readers out there may have noticed that there is a pitched argument going on over at the Customer Reviews section of Amazon.com’s page on my novel, The Long Walk Home. A female reviewer—the only one, I have to note, who hasn’t praised the book so far—complains that my main male character, Alex Hudson, is “like a superman.” This reader argues, among other things, that, “No man could do all these things [that Alec does]…and do them like a professional.”

Another reader—a man, in fact, and a steelworker in the Midwest—takes her on and they have a frankly not-too-polite contretemps.

I want to say to both of them, “People! It’s just a story!” But the fact is that this disagreement raises an important issue.

Bashing men for their apparent insensitivity, for their occasional incompetence in relationships, for their general knuckleheadedness, is a perennial theme on sit-coms, in contemporary culture and, for that matter, in a fair amount of contemporary women’s fiction. Google phrases like “good men,” or “decent guys,” and you’ll find plenty of complaining. (As well as complaints from men trying to find good and decent women!)

Are guys hopeless? And, by contrast, is a character like Alec Hudson, a “Superman?” Of course not. In fact, he makes it clear that his own characteristics played a part in his divorce from Gwynne. He’s no saint. But he does strive to be a decent man.

I have the great good fortune of having a group of writer friends, most but not all of them men, who meet almost weekly for a couple of drinks and some heated conversation about writing and other things at a certain Seattle watering hole. And I have to say, there isn’t a hairy mouth-breathing, knuckle-dragging, football-addled, club-wielding brute among them. They are, to a man, thoughtful, articulate, multi-talented, caring, respectful, and admiring of women. Okay, I’ll admit that when some especially lovely woman walks into the bar, their heads turn as if controlled by a single mechanism, but you know what? Each of them overcomes that basic, evolutionary response in an instant and—if you looked into their souls you’d find each is thoroughly loyal to the woman they call friend, or lover, and/or spouse.

They are, in fact, Good Men. And let’s be clear: though their talents are many, and though they all would, I suspect, be characterized as “sensitive” guys by the women they know best, they are also all Real Men.

One is an accomplished rower, explorer, and sea kayaker, as well as a world-renowned photographer, avid cook, and wine fancier. Another is a magazine editor who is also an expert on Michelangelo and, of all things, elephants. Yet another is a PhD. marine biologist, a best-selling thriller novelist, and a staunch supporter of his wife’s work with Native American communities in the Northwest.

I could go on, because the group is fairly large. But the point is, none of these men is a “Superman.” They’re just guys who have competence in their chosen vocation, avid interests outside their jobs, and a deep respect and affection for the women in their lives.

Here’s the bottom line: A man can be sensitive without being effeminate. A man can have a caring heart without being indecisive. A man can have competence in many subjects and activities. But he is still just a man.

And not a “Superman.”

Will someone please tell me what’s so surprising about love stories involving older people? In February, Reader’s Digest will be publishing a condensed version of The Long Walk Home as one of their “Special Editions” books featuring, as they put it, “today’s hottest authors.” (Nice for an older guy to be thought of as “hot,” though perhaps that’s not what they mean…) So the editor calls me with a few questions, one of which is, “Why a love story involving mature people?”

I just looked at the phone in disbelief.

Can you say, “Baby Boom?”

It was only a couple of months ago that the New England Journal of Medicine announced that people over the age of fifty are actively engaged in dating and sexual activity and, a couple of months earlier, that the elderly are too!

Then, on Sunday, November 18, the New York Times “Week in Review” section featured an article that marveled at the growth of movies involving older lovers. The latest, of course, is Away From Her, the new film in which a husband must come to terms with the fact that his Alzheimer’s-afflicted wife, played by Julie Christie, has fallen in love with another patient in her nursing home.

Why is any of this even news? Do they think we die inside at, say, forty-five? Do they think we no longer have the capacity for love or—dare I mention it?—lust?

I’m reminded of the mother of a woman I once loved. The mother and I had formed a deep friendship. She, too, was a writer. She began having small bleeding events in her brain, each of which compromised some facet of her normal functioning, until it was time for her to move into an assisted living facility. She’d been there for several months when a final, fatal hemorrhage killed her. Someone noticed that she hadn’t come down to breakfast that morning. The someone, it turned out, was an elderly man we later learned was her new lover, a man she’d known when both of them were much younger. Each had fancied the other but neither one knew…until they found themselves together again in the care facility.

The family was shocked. I was charmed. Mary Pipher, the noted psychologist and author of the book, Another Country, says something powerful in the Times story: “Young love,” she is quoted as saying, “is about wanting to be happy; old love is about wanting someone else to be happy.” In short, it is about giving rather than receiving. In my novel, The Long Walk Home, middle-aged Alec loves middle-aged and married Fiona so much he leaves her, knowing that—though she does not love her invalid husband—staying can only hurt her. That is, to my mind, the ultimate in “giving rather than receiving.” And their love was far more than simply companionable; it was passionate.

So, Why a love story about mature people?

Because we never give up hope.

Something in excess of 40 percent of all first marriages end in divorce. The figure rises to 60 percent for second marriages.

That’s a lot of heartbreak. It’s also a lot of exes. And sure, some of them are angry and bitter. But a lot aren’t. We don’t hear too much about ex-spouses who remain friends. Where’s the drama in that?

Continue reading "WHEN YOUR EX NEEDS YOU" »

They hauled me off to prison a couple of days ago.

No seriously; I’m not kidding.

Well, okay, maybe kidding a little. “They” in this case were Gary Greaves and Hugo House, the writers’ center here in Seattle named after the splendid northwest poet, Richard Hugo. Over the years I’ve done a bit of volunteering for them—mostly helping young authors with their manuscripts. Then Frances McCue, one of the founders of Hugo House, volunteered me for prison: the state prison in Monroe, Washington, about forty-five minutes north of the city. Turns out there is a group of “lifers”—we’re talking murderers here—who have been meeting for years to talk about books. Many of them are also writers, and at least one is published.

Continue reading "Tough Audience" »