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Affiliates
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Works by
Bill Valentine
(Writer)
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A Season of Grief (2006)
Chronicles the author's emotional descent after the
violent death of his partner of 21 years. Bill Valentine's journal of fear,
anger, denial, and loneliness captures the glimmers of hope, moments of
serendipity, and mysterious coincidences that emerged from his full-time
devotion to grief following the death of Joe Lopes, a flight attendant who
perished in November 2001 along with 264 others when American Airlines Flight
587 crashed shortly after takeoff in route to the Dominican Republic. This
unique book details the everyday struggles of a surviving partner trying to
carry on in a radically changed world.
He is a word always on my lips as I try to work him into
a conversation. He is a memory that I strive to keep alive. So yes, in
this sense, he is not gone. But in reality, he is. He is gone as my
lover. He is gone as my life partner. He is gone as my soul mate, the
only person to whom I periodically bared my soul. He is gone as my best
friend, the only person to whom I ever attached that label. He is gone
as my first reader and muse. Friends will fill in for many of these
roles. But Joe filled them all. So pardon me while I still hang on to
the notion that he is not here with me. Pardon me while I cling
stubbornly to the insistence that he is gone.
Valentine's candid and thoughtful account of his
heartbreaking efforts to make sense of his partner's death—and survive
in a world without him—is by turns, funny, frightening, sobering, and
surprising. In the nine months following the tragedy of Flight 587,
Valentine finds every waking moment of his life affected by his
partner's absence—from mundane household chores to major life decisions.
A Season of Grief is a story told in darkness and light, of hurt and
healing, love and loneliness, but mostly, of a man who learns to live
with his partner's absence through the persistent, surprising evidence
of his presence.
Our job on earth is to live with uncertainty, ambiguity,
and hope. We are given a limited tool set but one, in my opinion, that's
sufficient for the job. Sufficient to allow us to be engaged in life-to
love, grieve, work, play, celebrate, and despair. We have a remarkable
ability to rebound and grow. We have been granted the capacity for
wonder and laughter-especially at ourselves. These last two gifts were
bestowed generously on Joe and he, in turn, taught me how vital they
are.
Grief doesn't come with a set of instructions. But A
Season of Grief can help guide you through the lonely journey that
follows the death of a loved one. Valentine's memoir is a testament to
the healing power of reality and the enduring nature of love.
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City Birds: A Year in the Life of New York's Birds and
Birders (Future release)
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