Thanks for stopping by my stop on the CARRYING THE TIGER by Tony
Stewart Blog Tour hosted by Rockstar Book Tours! Check out my post and make sure to enter the giveaway!
About The Book:
Author: Tony Stewart
Pub. Date: April 29, 2025
Publisher: West End Books
Formats: Hardcover, Paperback, eBook, Audiobook
Pages: 320
Find it: Goodreads, https://books2read.com/Property-Of-The-Revolution
An inspiring story of love, loss and recovery
"A beautifully devastating memoir... a remarkable
odyssey of learning to 'live fully in the shadow of death.'" -
In the spirit of Joan Didion's The Year of Magical
Thinking and Paul Kalanithi's When Breath
Becomes Air comes Carrying the Tiger, a life affirming memoir about the full circle of life and death.
When Tony Stewart's wife, Lynn, receives a sudden and devastating diagnosis, they scramble to find effective treatment, navigate life threatening setbacks, learn to live fully in the shadow of death, and share the intimate grace of her departure from this world. Then Tony slowly climbs out of shattering grief and, surprisingly, eases toward new love.
There is uncertainty, fear, and sorrow, but also tenderness and joy, along with a renewed perspective on what it means to live and love with one's whole heart.
"Captures emotions and experiences that will be familiar to anyone who's stood by a loved one facing a cancer diagnosis... this is a work that will strengthen all who read it."- Khalid Dar, MD, Oncologist, Mount Sinai Morningside
"A beautiful and very human love story which breathes an
extraordinary generosity of spirit."- David Newman, author of
Talking with Doctors
Excerpt:
I tell myself that because Lynn and I
got to say all those goodbyes, because she knew how much I loved her, because
we had no regrets about our choices, my grief should be shallower or shorter
than most. In post after post, I emphasize the positives—as when, just two days
after she died, I describe riding around Central Park looking forward to my
life ahead.
But, really, I am in shock, as when your
body and mind conspire to shield you from the pain of an accident. For more
than six years, I’ve been driven by one goal: To help Lynn
stay as fully alive as possible. Now, in an instant, both the love of my life
and the purpose of my life are gone. Suddenly I’m alone, and I don’t know what
to do.
When the shock wears off, I discover
that in fact I am no different from anyone else. I am adrift in a merciless
sea, and the grief will have its turn.
Sunday, February 28, 2021
www.CaringBridge.org/LynnKotula
My desire for Lynn grows in
the darkness. Each morning I wake before 5 and lie in bed thinking of her,
talking to her, calling her back to me. I want the tears, I want the grief;
they remind me of my love for Lynn and all the ways she changed me.
We have acres of medical
supplies scattered around the house, stacks of unopened packs of adult diapers.
There is a hospice sticker on the refrigerator reminding me not to call 911
under any circumstance. Taking it down, removing any of these things, would
acknowledge that Lynn no longer needs them. I am not ready for that.
In a comment to a post I
wrote shortly before Lynn died, our friend Ann offered a metaphor and
prediction that I now hold close to my heart: that, after sitting in my grief
for a long while, I will assemble the shattered pieces of my life into a new
mosaic, one that includes Lynn (how could it not?) and allows me to move
forward. It is no surprise that I am nowhere near that. I find myself moving
between moments of calm and moments of extreme grief as if navigating between
the shards, standing first on one and then another, trying to find my balance.
But I am complicit in this. When I have felt okay for too long, I feel guilty.
I am not ready to be at peace. I want Lynn with me, so I find another shard to
stand on where I can feel her loss more keenly.
I kiss the hard plastic
brace, now dirty, which supported her broken neck and cradled her head. I smell
her pillow, where the scent is already beginning to fade. I take out my phone
and scroll through the photos in which Google has kindly identified her face.
When I knew Lynn was dying,
I started paying attention to the traces of her—her shirt draped over a chair,
her toothbrush in its holder, her boots where we dropped them the last time we
came home. I was trying to desensitize myself, knowing that once she was gone,
these things would trigger my grief. So far that is working; I can look at them
without crying. But grief finds its way in. Last night, friends in the building
invited me for dinner. When I got there, I realized this was the first time I’d sat in their dining room without Lynn,
the first time her place at their table was empty, and the grief welled up. I
cannot desensitize myself from everything. I don’t really want to.
This excerpt is from Tony Stewart’s new book, “Carrying the Tiger: Living with Cancer, Dying with Grace, Finding Joy while Grieving.” Reprinted with permission from West End Books.
About Tony Stewart:
Tony Stewart has made award-winning films for colleges and universities, written computer software that received rave reviews, designed a grants-management application that was used by three of the five largest charities in the world, and led the development of an international standard for the messages involved in buying and selling advertisements.
Tony and his late wife Lynn
Kotula, a painter, traveled extensively in India and Southeast Asia, staying in
small hotels off the beaten track and eating delicious food with their fingers
when cutlery wasn’t available. Carrying
the Tiger is his first book.
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