The Fire Trail - Ustenci

The Fire Trail: A Mother's Journey Through Grieving by Maureen Larkin Ustenci
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

      Maureen Larkin Ustenci in her The Fire Trail: A Mother’s Journey Through Grieving, at first tells “an absurd mix of everything good and bad about him;” Efejon, her and husband Mustafa’s only child. Teen angst, college-bound, partying with his buddies preface his sudden death the week after graduation, not quite 18, in 2016.

      Shock, denial and questioning assail her; but she and Mustafa are extremely fortunately swept up and surrounded by family, friends; the Turkish, Berkeley High School, Ultimate Frisbee and other communities as their lives collapse. People who adored or barely even knew their unique, emotional, enthusiastic and charismatic son show up. By the hundreds.

     This is a memoir that welcomes you into fellowship with a very human, fallible and truthful author. “I put the phone down and put my head down and cried so hard that it felt like my throat was tearing and my eyes were being pushed out of their sockets,” as well as, reading Rumi poetry that someone gave her, “that person is gone forever, and the only remaining way to love them is to love them with no thought of any return, selflessly.”

     Never preachy or whining, deeply grateful; she describes changes, thoughts and feelings as she goes along, like “there has been nothing so healing for me – … as being with Efejon’s friends… they remind me over and over that… Efejon’s life – not his loss – was what mattered.” “Torn out of that grand procession of life, out of that harmony and that rhythm,” she ticks off other family disasters and says, “none of this is even particularly bad luck. It’s just life.” 

     Breakdown, horror, despair, dissolving, self-abandonment -- then support, moments of survival, shreds of courage, mountains of love, one foot in front of the other, slowly recontextualized into a bigger picture, never entirely "the same." 

     An outstanding volume, directly and skillfully created in honor of a dear young man; chronicling his extraordinary and also "ordinary" Mother's grief. 

     Thank you. Bless all of you. Tell the tale. Endure… 

(The Berkeley Times, Knox Book Beat, 10 February, 2022)

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