One of the more interesting aspects of having a book out is looking on Amazon to see what “people who bought this book also bought.” In this way, I’ve come to learn of memoirs like Alice Eve Cohen’s What I Thought I Knew (which I have not read yet, but plan to), and Christine Gleason’s Almost Home (another book on my To Be Read shelf). The one book that popped up and kept popping up as something I knew I had to read was Joan Ryan’s The Water Giver: The Story of a Mother, a Son, and Their Second Chance. Ryan’s story is a tough one, and complicated, and like good memoirs, doesn’t tie itself up with a neat little bow. It’s also a story of mother-son love, which is a topic both dear and wrenching to my own heart.
I had the book in my hand several times at the store, but kept putting it back on the shelf. I didn’t think I was ready. Then Ryan herself wrote to our reviews department at Literary Mama, offering us a copy. At that point, it seemed like I couldn’t say no, that the book was calling out to me to be read. “Yes,” I said. “Send it along.”
Even after the book arrived, I entered into another, deeper round of approach avoidance. Ryan’s son, whose name is Ryan, experienced a traumatic brain injury as a teenager, after an accident on a skateboard. He entered into a difficult (very difficult) hospitalization, and an even more difficult rehab. He is not “fine,” although he has survived, with the complications many survivors of traumatic brain injury experience: mood swings, unpredictable behavior, seizures. A life on medications and maintenance.
A story that is familiar to my heart, in so many ways, but in other ways not at all. I do not have a teenage son, nor did my boy ride skateboard. But inside the story came the resonances. The love, fear, panic and worry. All this Joan Ryan does so very well, including the ambivalence she feels from the start of Ryan’s infancy and childhood, as he was not the boy she thought she would raise. Even before the accident, Ryan’s life is troublesome: diagnoses of ADHD and sensory integration dysfunction, visits to psychologists and psychiatrists, journeys into special education and IEP’s.
It’s not fair that these complications should be so much more deeply complicated by her son’s accident, but this is where the real story begins, in fact, as Joan Ryan unravels the true dimensions of what it means to love, and what this love can bring her son. The scene that gives the book its title is a marvel of this love, as Joan gives Ryan the drink of water he’s been craving for months, water that has been banned due to Ryan’s swallowing difficulties. Ryan asks, the nurse refuses, and Joan steps in.
Ryan turned and looked up at me the way he did as a baby in his crib, his eyes big and soft, taking me in as if I were an amazing dream, a miracle come true right in his room.
“Mom,” he sighed. “The water giver.”
In this moment, and in so many both before and after, lies this story’s brave luminosity, and that is the truth of what it means to need, and be needed, in such a fundamental, human way.
I’d love to share this book with a reader. Leave me a comment and I’ll pick a lucky one on December 21st, in honor of the solstice.
Comments 21
4 years ago,a friend’s son was involved in a major car accident.By the literal grace of God a skilled paramedic heard an “off” sound in his heartbeat and quickly knew there was more to the obvious outward injuries.Diagnosis:torn aorta.99% of patients never make it to the hospital.Eric was lucky he made it to the hospital but today, with a repaired heart,his mother is trying to find her way through her very own broken heart.Eric is no longer Eric.Yes he walks and talks but what jumped out at me.as I read your review was “He is not “fine” although he has survived, with the complications many survivors of traumatic brain injury experience: mood swings, unpredicatable behavior, seizures. A life on medications and maintenance.”
This is their life now.Finding their way and before I wrote this comment I called a friend and said,”We just need to get this book for Pam”
So thank you friend.Once again I come and find, yet another gift from you.
Posted 18 Dec 2009 at 12:06 pm ¶You know it is this that most resonates with me ..
‘Ryan asks, the nurse refuses, and Joan steps in.’
Among so many lasting lessons, This Lovely Life taught me the meaning of maternal conviction. You showed me what it mean to truly trust one’s knowledge of their own child and I am grateful.
To see it again just brought all of that back. Such a meaningful lesson for us all.
Posted 18 Dec 2009 at 12:44 pm ¶I read The Water Giver a couple of months ago, and loved it. Like you , my story is different but so much of the fear, pain, and joy resonated. I think I even wrote about it on my blog. I had the great fortune of hearing Joan Ryan interviewed on our local public radio station — I emailed in that I related to her, both who she was before her son’s accident (shelves of books, lists of specialists, trying to “fix” her son) and after — learning to love and celebrate who her son was. I also told her that I felt like she was too hard on her “before” self… Thankfully she chuckled when my comment was read!
Posted 18 Dec 2009 at 2:06 pm ¶Vicki,
Thank you for the lovely review. It is so meaningful to me as a writer to read the words of another writer — and mother — who truly understands. You made my day — my week!
all best,
Joan
Posted 18 Dec 2009 at 3:54 pm ¶Vicki- hope you are well… I’ve been thinking about you. Sounds like a really great book:)
Posted 18 Dec 2009 at 4:30 pm ¶Pick me, pick me. On the shortest, darkest day of the year, no less…
Posted 18 Dec 2009 at 8:03 pm ¶i love that title. and the story that provided it.
Posted 19 Dec 2009 at 6:14 am ¶I keep writing comments and deleting them. This post reminds me of how incredibly brave and strong you are, as though I didn’t already know.
xo
Posted 19 Dec 2009 at 8:28 am ¶It sounds like an amazing book, complemented by your beautiful, moving review.
Posted 19 Dec 2009 at 2:15 pm ¶Isn’t it funny what we are pulled to (or actively avoid) when we are in a state of ‘crisis’? I am pulled to memoirs like a magnet… I think I am always seeking others perspectives on how to cope with this overwhelming thing called parenting. Or maybe I am looking for a family of parents who are in the thick of the thick. And yet, the last book I read is absolute brain candy (no nutritional value whatsoever)… sometimes a break from the real is good too.
Posted 19 Dec 2009 at 7:11 pm ¶Once again you caught me stunning with my mouth open in front of the monitor. Joan`s writing is so pure, so real, so straight from the heart…and your words, your review is as well. Just like Heather said, to come here -once again- and find a gift. Thank you.
Posted 20 Dec 2009 at 2:23 am ¶There are so many good books lately about issues related to childhood disability. I appreciate your review and also your anxiety approaching the task. I’d be interested in reading from this perspective as well.
Posted 20 Dec 2009 at 8:27 am ¶Snowed-in in California, couldn’t fly home to DC yesterday, but it did give me a chance to catch up on some blogs. Will read the book (you don’t have to pick me, however, I will find a copy during my trip), always glad to hear about other parents who are ambivalent about parenting, like me. Mostly I am posting to let you know that I heard the manager of the Von’s across from your favorite hospital actively discussing the restocking and placement of their Hanukkah candles and thought of you…
Posted 20 Dec 2009 at 12:46 pm ¶The book sounds amazing. I would love to be considered! Thanks so much…
Posted 21 Dec 2009 at 9:30 am ¶Ditto Tanya (that still counts as a comment, right?).
Posted 21 Dec 2009 at 1:19 pm ¶I came here to wish you a Merry Christmas and instead found this amazing report. I have been writing quite a bit about my struggles with my son Dakota, who is 15, while keeping the details private out of respect for him. I’d love to have this book.
And Merry Christmas to a talented, sensitive writer I am so glad to have come across. xo
Posted 21 Dec 2009 at 9:58 pm ¶I’m too late for the drawing, but I’ll look for this book in my local bookstore–your recommendation means a lot.
Posted 22 Dec 2009 at 5:45 am ¶This sounds really amazing, Vicki. Thanks for posting about it. I’ll check it out.
ox
Posted 22 Dec 2009 at 10:38 am ¶If you haven’t picked anybody yet…..I promise I’ll read it and then trot across the street to return it to you so someone else can have a turn too.
Posted 26 Dec 2009 at 7:33 pm ¶I would love to read it. I know there would be much I could relate to. Just discovered your blog today. And I hope to visit again. Thank-you!
Posted 20 Jan 2010 at 10:57 am ¶It sounds like a wonderful book. My only thought was what if she gave her son the water and he choked on it and died? I mean, it’s a lovely image and all: sick boy craving water, NEEDING water but medical protocal is there for a reason. Doctors don’t just forbid kids to have water because they’re mean. Maybe I’m overthinking this because I’m married to a neurologist but oh lordy, if my kid were desperately ill and he was not supposed to have water then no way would I give it to him.
Posted 18 Feb 2010 at 2:02 pm ¶I have yet to read the book so maybe I’m missing something. I’ll have to get ahold of a copy.
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