Walking Higher

Rating:
Summary: Wonderful testament to life!
Review: Believe it or not, this book is not gloomy, dark or depressing. While it does, by necessity, often go into vivid detail about the diseases and physical suffering of a number of mothers, overall the book embraces joy and life itself; the searching and questioning and the coming to terms with life-altering ideas/emotions that all of us share at some level. I especially love the photos of the writers' mothers. They are all so bittersweet and add a poignancy to each writer's essay. I am not a gay male and my mother is still alive, but I still found this book meaningful and touching in an all too human way.

Rating:
Summary: Gratifying and enlightening
Review: From the beginning, this book takes you into the lives of these authors and the stories you hear will amaze you. Each story was like opening someone's diary but you did not feel guilty for intruding. One by one, I could visualize what I thought of each son and their mother plus the other members of their families, like their partners and siblings. (plus the author's own photos added an additional touch). I also enjoyed the introduction and authors' biographies which I recommend every reader read.
As a recently married woman who spends her days as a mental health casemanager listening to people's life stories, I was not prepared for how this book would affect me. I could see how someone's physical and mental illness played out by those affected by it. I could hear how heartbreaking each mother's death was, no matter how close the son was to her.
While most would think this book would send you into depression, it in fact elated me. I felt different after every story but the end result was gratifying. Unfortunately people need to be reminded of what they have before they lose it. No one truly understands what is is like to lose a parent until you do and for gay men, tbis book highlights and defines their loses. For any person, this book does that.

Rating:
Summary: How Love Appears in the Face of Death
Review: Gay men and mothers - what could be a more obvious? The pairing has long been the stuff of camp, comedy, tragedy, and curious psychology. Add death, though, and it becomes the stuff of every person's life.

Including himself, editor Alexander Renault has gathered the experiences of 30 gay men who reflect on the deaths, and therefore the lives, of their mothers. The women they mourn and honor are feisty and timid, assertive and reticent, independent and docile, and the relationships they describe range from painfully estranged to wonderfully and gleefully close. Almost without exception the mothers are challenged by their sons' sexual orientations, and almost without exception they rise tremendously to that challenge, confronting the boundaries of their own beliefs, hopes, and expectations, and allowing the love they bear their children to carry them to the recognition that their sons and their relationships with them matter more - far more - than prejudice.

At the same time, the sons confront their own fears, beliefs, and - yes - prejudices to come to terms with their own and their mothers' strengths, frailties, and humanity. When death comes, frequently presaged by debilitating and very humanizing illness, the passionate importance of the mother-child bond becomes so apparent that everything else takes a back seat.

Walking Higher is a valuable book containing valuable and sometimes eloquent insights for anyone, gay or not, who is, was, has, or had a mother. Essay by essay, from the writers' collective encounters with their mothers' deaths, an unexpected fount of wisdom arises, pointing the way for every person toward the possibility of a society in which communication, intimacy, and the honest sharing of loving human hearts can overcome even the separations death mandates. That wisdom proves what psychotherapists have been claiming for a long time: that while death inevitably ends a life, it need not end a relationship.

Rating:
Summary: Life, love, and loss
Review: This book does a tremendous job of expressing the universal themes and wants of human beings: love for family, accepting others as they are (not just as pertains to sexuality, but all our views and prejudices), and dealing with an empty space in your life. Once you're done being flattened by the stories, check out the author info. These writers represent humanity, not just one little part of it. If you're human and want to learn more about what it means to be human, give the book a try.

Rating:
Summary: An Excellent Guide to Healing
Review: Whether or not you are gay, or have experienced the death of your mother, we all experience death and loss during our lifetimes. While it is a difficult subject to face, reading about the strength, courage, and yes-- even weakness and doubts of others who have dealt with such an emotional process can be empowering and moving beyond belief.

WALKING HIGHER honors mothers everywhere, embraces truth, and especially celebrates and explores the relationship between gay men and their mothers. It often breaks down myths surrounding grief, and busts stereotypes of the gay male-mother connection in surprising ways.

This book is a perfect example of how people deal with death-- the process of sadness, betrayal, anger, healing, and also the celebration and reverence of life including happy, funny and loving memories, as well. I recommend this book to anyone with an open heart and an open mind who seeks to explore the human conditions of love and loss, life and death.