Winter Light by Douglas J. Penick Patron-Only Early Access / Ad-Free

Hey Cliff thank you for this wonderful video and introducing me to Annihilation by Michel Houellebecq. I lost my father at the age of 18 suddenly and had to become the "head of the family" as it were. That meant that I was the person that took lead when my Grandmother started to decline mentally and passing away from a stroke. More recently I had to watch my mom fight pancreatic caner and watch the pain absorb her for an entire year. Nothing I can do would relieve what she was going through and I felt powerless watching her slowly pass away last August. After watching my grandmother and mom lose everything that makes them who they were, I was adamant that assisted suicide was a just cause to continue with life's journey after this one. I was recommended a book by my mom's best friend who is a clinical psychologist called "Kill Me" by Stephen White (another clinical psychologist turned author). The long and the short of it is it made me question the validity of the idea of assisted suicide. It made me reflect on the people that moved me in their later years and how I would have missed out on my great grandmother who passed away when she was 102 years young telling me stories about growing up on a farm in Oklahoma before Oklahoma was even a state. She was a beautiful woman that I miss even today. Thank you for everything that you do

Cliff, this review almost brought me to tears, and why that is is difficult to say, even as I am compelled to try. All I know is that you perfectly expressed a sentiment I feel when I talk to the grandparents of mine that are still alive. And I am overcome with feelings of profound gratitude to all the old people who love me and whom I love back, even if the cause of these feelings is uncertain and ephemeral. In May of last year I was visiting my father in Greece at the same time that my grandmother was there too -- none of us are Greek, and my father is an expat there. So when my grandmother suddenly fell gravely ill (I won't say what from, but her illness caused her mental as well as phyical distress) and she ended up in the geriatric ward of the a hospital, my father and I had to stay with her 24/7 because none of us spoke Greek and my grandmother speaks no English and so we needed to be there so she could communicate to doctors. Shortly after, they identified the issue and she was cured, and she is thank god safely and soundly with us, for many more years I deeply hope. And yet, something about having this experience as an adult (not like when you are young and someone passes but you are cloistered from the action) was for me a spiritual memento mori hitherto unknown. I felt then that there is a near-invisible line between dignity and helplessness that is also near-impossible to express -- a helplessness we first feel then observe then someday feel anew. Memories of my nights that May beside my grandmother came flooding back when listening to you speak about the book, and the memories had no unpleasant flavours, no anxieties came forth, I was just appreciative of the knowledge that that very private, intimate sadness of passing on, is known universally and as clearly as we see the morning sun by anyone who has known the love of elders. Needless to say, I greatly look forward to reading Winter Light as soon as I can. Thank you!

I remember being a late teen working in a care home, reading The Stranger by Camus, and coming across the passage that says something along the lines from the prisoner saying it doesn’t matter if I die now or at 80, I will have these same thoughts then as I do now. I remember it really bolting me and made me question my tacit assumptions that something may be different at that age. I think it struck into me that indeed it will be ME there and not some other poor old sod. Working with the old from a young age certainly made me reflect on how, as you say, the old are almost discarded in our society. There is something quite horrific about it when you consider that happening to you.