by Richard W. Brown March 9, 2024 2 comments

United by Flowers

Estimated reading time: 1 minute, 27 seconds

Three Amigos

Flower Show 2024 Reminds Me How to Survive Grief

Today, I am back in Philadelphia for the annual Flower Show. Since my beloved wife passed away three years ago, I have kept this tradition alive for four years. My dear friends Hugo and Arnold will be my companions during this visit.

As I stroll through the vibrant displays, the theme of this year’s event, “United by Flowers,” strikes a chord. It reminds me of the power of gardening to forge connections, bring people of diverse backgrounds together, and make a meaningful impact on their lives. The gardening process mirrors the steps we must take to recover after experiencing a loss. We must band together and work with our loved ones, friends, and neighbors to heal and regain our capacity for joy.

Upon entering the show, I am greeted by an explosion of colors and fragrances. The sweet, heady scent of the flowers fills my nostrils, and for a moment, I am not in Philadelphia or anywhere on our planet but in a world that is pure, beautiful, and full of hope.

The initial exhibit showcased butterflies. I managed to attract more butterflies than anyone else.

Despite the changes that time and the climate emergency have brought, the Flower Show remains a place of solace and joy for me. I feel my heart lift as I take in the beauty around me, and I am grateful for these small moments of respite that remind me of the power of nature to heal and inspire.

The Jan Lilien Education Fund sponsors ongoing sustainability and environmental awareness programs. All donations are tax-deductible.

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Richard W. Brown

After almost 48 years, I recently lost my wife, Jan Lilien. Like The Little Prince, Jan and I believed that “The most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or touched, they are felt with the heart.” This blog is a collection of my random thoughts on love, grief, life, and all things considered.

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My random thoughts on love, grief, life and all things considered.

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The Lion's Den

Read: January 2023

The Lion’s Den

by Anthony Marra

Today, I read The Lion’s Den by Anthony Marra. After a four and one-half Zoom meeting, I was looking for a book I could finish tonight, and the third book in the Inheritance, a collection of five stories about secrets, unspoken desires, and dangerous revelations between loved ones, seemed like the book to read. The Lion’s Den is the story of Michael, a son, his father’s transgressions in a tell-all were the ethical, righteous—and profitable—thing to do. What’s left but to slink back home for a humbling face-to-face with the man whose secrets he sold?

It was the perfect novel to read this evening. In the opening paragraph, when Michael’s father describes the automated customer service computer voice.” Siri’s dimwitted stepsister,” I knew I could enjoy this book.

Michael’s last-minute invitation to be the Ethics Symposium speaker at his parochial school was written in a way that was both bluntly honest and humorous.

Michael’s visits with his father to the lion’s den at the National Zoo were profoundly moving, and when the wheelchair was left there after his father’s death brought tears to my eyes.

I highly recommend The Lion’s Den, part of Inheritance, a collection of five stories about secrets, unspoken desires, and dangerous revelations between loved ones. Each Inheritance piece can be read or listened to in a single setting. By yourself, behind closed doors, or shared with someone you trust. This is the third one in the series I have read. The previous two were Everything My Mother Taught Me and Can You Feel This?

I have enjoyed all three and look forward to reading the final two.

The Goodreads summary provides an overview,

Exposing his father’s transgressions in a tell-all was the ethical, righteous—and profitable—thing to do. What’s left but to slink back home for a humbling face-to-face with the man whose secrets he sold?

He was a notorious government whistle-blower. Depending on whom you ask, he’s a treasonous felon, a folk hero, a validated patriot, or a national disgrace. To his son, Michael, he’s the father who threw his family into upheaval. Now, having moved back home at thirty-four, Michael is getting to know him as a man and getting nearer to understanding his motivations that have remained a mystery in this darkly humorous short story of sacrifice and betrayal by New York Times bestselling author Anthony Marra.

The Jan Lilien Education Fund sponsors ongoing sustainability and environmental awareness programs. Gifts made this month; I will match dollar-for-dollar. All donations are tax-deductible.

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I receive a commission when you buy a book or product using a link on this page. Thank you for supporting Sharing Jan’s Love blog.

Richard W. Brown

After almost 48 years, I recently lost my wife, Jan Lilien. Like The Little Prince, Jan and I believed that “The most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or touched, they are felt with the heart.” This blog is a collection of my random thoughts on love, grief, life, and all things considered.

I Have Some Questions for You:

Read: February 2023

I Have Some Questions for You

by Rebecca Makkai

I Have Some Questions for You by Rebecca Makkai is a book that, from page one, pulled me into the story and made me believe I was embedded with Bodie Kane as she returned to her boarding school and worked with students to review the murder of her roommate twenty-three years ago. I Have Some Questions for You was more than a page-turner as I was an unnamed participant. I highly recommend this book and, as Ms. Makkai does, buy it at an independent bookstore.

I had not heard of the book until I read a review in The New Yorker by Katty Waldman, who writes, “The new book, a murder mystery set at an élite boarding school, is being marketed as an irresistible whodunnit. But it also joins a growing number of critiques of true crime.” Once I finished the review, I ordered the book and did not put it down until I finished the novel.

Do not “read this book if you”are looking for a whodunnit. It is a critique of true crime and an assessment of the “me too” era. How do we judge the past by the standards of the present?

Every book I have read since Jan died is one I wanted to discuss with her. But I Have Some Questions is one that would have been helpful for both of us to read simultaneously and share our thoughts. Jan’s work with the YWCA of Union County’s Domestic Violence program would have given her a unique perspective. But my lifetime efforts to free me from male blindness would have been a good counterpoint.

Please read this book, share it, and discuss it.

The Goodreads summary provides an overview,

A successful film professor and podcaster, Bodie Kane is content to forget her past—the family tragedy that marred her adolescence, her four largely miserable years at a New Hampshire boarding school, and her former roommate, Thalia Keith, in the spring of their senior year. Though the circumstances surrounding Thalia’s murder and the conviction of the school’s trainer, Omar Evans, are online, Bodie prefers—needs—to let sleeping dogs lie.

But when the Granby School invites her back to teach a course, Bodie is inexorably drawn to the case and its increasingly apparent ﬂaws. As she falls down the rabbit hole she was so determined to avoid, Bodie begins to wonder if she wasn’t an outsider at Granby as she’d thought, perhaps, back in 1995, she knew something that might have held the key to solving the case. In their rush to convict Omar, did the school and the police overlook other suspects? Is the real killer still out there?

In I Have Some Questions for You, award-winning author Rebecca Makkai has crafted her most irresistible novel yet: a stirring investigation, timely, hypnotic, and populated with a cast of unforgettable characters, I Have Some Questions for You is at once a compulsive page-turner and a literary triumph.

The Jan Lilien Education Fund sponsors ongoing sustainability and environmental awareness programs. Gifts made this month; I will match dollar-for-dollar. All donations are tax-deductible.

Subscribe

Contact Us

I receive a commission when you buy a book or product using a link on this page. Thank you for supporting Sharing Jan’s Love blog.

Richard W. Brown

After almost 48 years, I recently lost my wife, Jan Lilien. Like The Little Prince, Jan and I believed that “The most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or touched, they are felt with the heart.” This blog is a collection of my random thoughts on love, grief, life, and all things considered.

The Peacekeeper

Read: May 2022

The Peacekeeper: A Novel

by B.L. Blanchard

The Peacekeeper: A Novel by B.L. Blanchard is about North America, where The United States and Canada do not exist. After reading about Ethiopia during the ill-fated Italian invasion, I looked for an alternative history of my continent. An independent Ojibwe nation surrounding the Great Lakes is the change in venue that I was seeking.

Although crime mysteries are not my preferred genre, I found The Peacekeeper: A Novel by B.L. Blanchard a pageturner and a highly recommended book. Chibenashi’s works resolve a second murder twenty years after his mothers. The victim is his mother’s best friend. The search for truth will change his life and those close to him.

The Goodreads summary:

Against the backdrop of a never-colonized North America, a broken Ojibwe detective embarks on an emotional and twisting journey toward solving two murders, rediscovering family, and finding himself.

In the village of Baawitigong, a Peacekeeper confronts his devastating past.

Twenty years ago, Chibenashi’s mother was murdered, and his father confessed. Ever since caring for his still-traumatized younger sister has been Chibenashi’s privilege and penance. Now, another woman is slain on the same night of the Manoomin harvest—his mother’s best friend. The murder leads to a seemingly impossible connection that takes Chibenashi far from the only world he’s ever known.

The central city of Shikaakwa is home to the victim’s cruelly estranged family—and to two people Chibenashi never wanted to see again: his imprisoned father and the lover who broke his heart. As the questions mount, the answers will change his and his sister’s lives forever because Chibenashi is about to discover that everything about those lives has been a lie.

Subscribe

Contact Us

When you buy a book or product using a link on this page, I receive a commission. Thank you for supporting Sharing Jan’s Love blog.

Richard W. Brown

After almost 48 years, I recently lost my wife, Jan Lilien. Like The Little Prince, Jan and I believed that “The most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or touched, they are felt with the heart.” This blog is a collection of my random thoughts on love, grief, life, and all things considered.