This book may contain language, sexual content, and themes of grief and loss, which may be challenging for some readers. Reader caution advised.
She Writes It Out
by Linda Allen
This is Linda Allen in Amarillo for the Radio Readers fall book “Late Migrations” by Margaret Renkl. The short description on the book says it is “A Natural History of Love and Loss.”
This small yet mighty series of short essays is heart-rending in all the best, bittersweet ways you can imagine.
The author spent her childhood in northeast Alabama surrounded by her mother’s parents and grandparents and the deep roots intertwining their lives fostered her reverence for both family and the natural world. She carries that forward currently in the land and trees around her Nashville home of many years in what she describes as a “first tier suburb.” The home she shares with a good husband where they’ve raised three solid sons. She’s cared for and grieved her parents and in-laws as they’ve passed from life. The father she adored who died relatively quickly after a cancer diagnosis and the mother who declined over time. In one poignant chapter she considers which is harder - caring for her now difficult mother and watching her struggle versus the grief she knows will inevitably follow her death.
Family relationships, parenting, loss and grief are universal parts of life for most of us, especially those of a certain age and even more so since Covid. Rare even is the child who hasn’t been affected by the loss of a beloved pet and knows how that feels. These stories are interwoven with observations of nature that create a lovely balance of perception for the reader.
As someone who lives right in town and has a regular-sized yard I’m not as closely connected as she is to the birds, butterflies and critters found in her half acre suburban yard. She writes about the effort it requires to not interfere with nature in all its cruelty and every kind heart can relate to that. She does resist mostly, and her astute observations are simultaneously educational and heart tugging.
A behavior I have in common with the author is the instinct to write to gain perspective and make sense of things as I strive to comprehend the depths of love and loss. I have journaled for most of my life and still look back to see how my mind and body were handling it all in the face of happiness and stress. “Late Migrations” was published in 2019, before Covid turned our world upside down and left us marking time as pre or post pandemic. When I look back on the period from September 2019 to September 2020, I’m amazed to have survived that year of extreme personal stress. Once the turbulence subsided I wrote and wrote until I put the pieces into place in my mind and was able to let them settle. The author has honed that to an art.
Margaret Renkl also published a second collection in 2023 titled “The Comfort of Crows, A Backyard Year” wherein she continued to lean heavily into her nature-filled corner of the world for solace and understanding life’s changes and adjustments. There’s a quote from Henry Ellis saying, “All the art of living lies in a fine mingling of letting go and holding on.” The older I get the more sense that makes.
Another wonderful thing about these books is they’re beautifully illustrated by the author’s artist brother Billy Renkl. The volumes are gems to keep and perfect to gift and share with all your favorite people. I’ll be hoping for further works by this evocative journalist.
Thanks for listening and supporting us radio readers and our valuable HPPR station. This has been Linda Allen in Amarillo.
