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No More Words: A Journal of My Mother, Anne Morrow Lindbergh
In 1999 Anne Morrow Lindbergh, the famed aviator and author, moved from her home in Connecticut to the farm in Vermont where her daughter, Reeve, and Reeve's family live. Mrs. Lindbergh was in her nineties and had been rendered nearly speechless years earlier by a series of small strokes that also left her frail and dependent on others for her care. As an accomplished author who had learned to write in part by reading her mother's many books, Reeve was deeply saddened and frustrated by her inability to communicate with her mother, a woman long recognized in her family and throughout the world as a gifted communicator.
No More Words is a moving and compassionate memoir of the final seventeen months of Reeve's mother's life. Reeve writes with great sensitivity and sympathy for her mother's plight, while also analyzing her own conflicting feelings. Anyone who has had to care for an elderly parent disabled by Alzheimer's or stroke will understand immediately the heartache and anguish Reeve suffered and will find comfort in her story.
No More Words is a moving and compassionate memoir of the final seventeen months of Reeve's mother's life. Reeve writes with great sensitivity and sympathy for her mother's plight, while also analyzing her own conflicting feelings. Anyone who has had to care for an elderly parent disabled by Alzheimer's or stroke will understand immediately the heartache and anguish Reeve suffered and will find comfort in her story.
174 pages, Paperback
First published August 28, 2000
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About the author
Reeve Lindbergh
64 books60 followersChildren's author, novelist, and poet Reeve Lindbergh is the daughter of world-renowned aviator Charles Lindbergh and his wife, the talented writer Anne Morrow Lindbergh.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 122 reviews
February 7, 2015
As I finished this book I noticed that tomorrow is the anniversary of Anne Morrow Lindbergh's death. I think that earned the book an extra 1/2 ★.
This was a wonderful journal/memoir of the author's last days with her mother. Mrs. Lindbergh had suffered strokes that left her close to speechless. She could speak but she just didn't except for when she had something to say. But she couldn't live on her own and Reeve was able to take her in, especially after her sister Anne died. AML had her own house on Reeve and Nat's farm in Vermont. Somewhere along the way Anne collected three Buddhists who took care of her. Fixed her meals, made sure she took her meds, etc.
Years ago I read a book either by her/about her. I can't recall the title. This was probably 40 years ago when I was in college and most likely I should have been reading other things. And somewhere I have Gift from the Sea which I should get back to. But I think my copy is falling apart - got it at a used book sale, I just didn't know it was that used.
One sad thing is that apparently people come out of the woodwork every now and then "pretending" to be the dead Charlie Lindbergh. Nothing to be done about it but for the family to try to ignore it and wait for it to go away. The surprising thing is that there are hundreds of them.
This was a wonderful journal/memoir of the author's last days with her mother. Mrs. Lindbergh had suffered strokes that left her close to speechless. She could speak but she just didn't except for when she had something to say. But she couldn't live on her own and Reeve was able to take her in, especially after her sister Anne died. AML had her own house on Reeve and Nat's farm in Vermont. Somewhere along the way Anne collected three Buddhists who took care of her. Fixed her meals, made sure she took her meds, etc.
Years ago I read a book either by her/about her. I can't recall the title. This was probably 40 years ago when I was in college and most likely I should have been reading other things. And somewhere I have Gift from the Sea which I should get back to. But I think my copy is falling apart - got it at a used book sale, I just didn't know it was that used.
One sad thing is that apparently people come out of the woodwork every now and then "pretending" to be the dead Charlie Lindbergh. Nothing to be done about it but for the family to try to ignore it and wait for it to go away. The surprising thing is that there are hundreds of them.
April 8, 2009
During our sisters retreat, two weeks ago, my oldest sister, Maryann, gave Janell, Dawn, and I this book. Our mother has Alzheimers. For me this book was poignant. There is such comfort knowing others have experienced what we are experiencing with out mother. I have sobbed and laughed while reading the book. It isn't an easy read or uplifting--it is heavy, but comforting to. My mom loved Anne Morrow Lindbergh and has had all her girls reading her writings. Before I went home I had even reread "Gifts From the Sea" for the I don't know how many times. I didn't know Mrs. Lindbergh had had Alzheimers, but have taken courage from the writings of her daughter. Reeve Lindbergh said, "How did we get to this point?" I ask myself that all the time concerning my mom. I have comfort knowing she is in the Lord's hands and so am I. If you are dealing with anything close to this you will find peace and tears reading this book.
Mom passed away January 21,2009. It was a glorious experience. She is free.
Mom passed away January 21,2009. It was a glorious experience. She is free.
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August 24, 2009I am a huge fan of Anne Morrow Lindbergh, both as a role model and as a writer, and her daughter Reeve speaks with the same elegant, down-to-earth, masterful voice. This book chronicles the final two years of AML’s life, from Reeve’s point of view, and it is far more a book about life than death: Reeve’s life, too, and that of her family, and all the people that come and go and continue their own fierce living in the face of AML’s long dying. Anne Morrow Lindbergh chronicled her own life in a series of published letters and diaries, most of which I have read, and it feels right to have the life “completed” in my head. I love that Reeve has given us this book, which speaks so eloquently for her mother after Anne’s own voice has been silenced.
It hits home with me on all kinds of fronts. My own grandmother is 93, the same age as AML at the start of this book, but in contrast to the frail heroine my grandmother is active and independent, still driving, living alone in theory but in reality caring for two great-grandchildren aged 10 and 14. My mother-in-law—a contrast again—though ten years younger than my grandmother is suffering a mental decline similar to AML’s (for different reasons). And randomly, how cool is this: AML’s two daughters and I all share the same birthday, a silly little coincidence that always makes me think I must have a special affinity with them. Of course, I and the Lindbergh women are all writers and fliers. The reason I was drawn to AML in the first place was because she was a writer and a pilot, like me married to a considerably better and more experienced pilot. The AML book that first seduced me was not Gift from the Sea but Listen! The Wind, because, unbelievably but unquestionably, it reminded me of my own early flying experiences with my own husband.
So, No More Words is a bit of an emotional roller-coaster. It’s a painful and sometimes hilarious chronicle of the deterioration and death of a loved one. But it’s very life-affirming, and a fitting tribute, and I think Reeve Lindbergh is as gifted a writer as her mother.
Reeve’s own autobiography, Under a Wing, is also worth reading.
It hits home with me on all kinds of fronts. My own grandmother is 93, the same age as AML at the start of this book, but in contrast to the frail heroine my grandmother is active and independent, still driving, living alone in theory but in reality caring for two great-grandchildren aged 10 and 14. My mother-in-law—a contrast again—though ten years younger than my grandmother is suffering a mental decline similar to AML’s (for different reasons). And randomly, how cool is this: AML’s two daughters and I all share the same birthday, a silly little coincidence that always makes me think I must have a special affinity with them. Of course, I and the Lindbergh women are all writers and fliers. The reason I was drawn to AML in the first place was because she was a writer and a pilot, like me married to a considerably better and more experienced pilot. The AML book that first seduced me was not Gift from the Sea but Listen! The Wind, because, unbelievably but unquestionably, it reminded me of my own early flying experiences with my own husband.
So, No More Words is a bit of an emotional roller-coaster. It’s a painful and sometimes hilarious chronicle of the deterioration and death of a loved one. But it’s very life-affirming, and a fitting tribute, and I think Reeve Lindbergh is as gifted a writer as her mother.
Reeve’s own autobiography, Under a Wing, is also worth reading.
November 22, 2017
So beautiful - so very moving. Filled with passages to write down and keep. Anne Morrow Lindbergh’s daughter has done a tender, thoughtful, detailed sharing of the last year+ of a long lived life. A book that stays with you. Still crying!
May 14, 2014
I was drawn to this book by my appreciation for Anne Morrow Lindbergh. This journal follows the last year or so of Anne's long life, during which she lived like a specter on her daughter's Vermont farm. Reeve's writing is bare and brilliant, although it seemed to falter with the arrival of a death long expected. Just as the Lindbergh myth unraveled after her father's death, her mother's deterioration into silence and dementia belied the endurance of her literary voice. Over and over in this brave, sad testament, I remembered Joyce Carol Oates' admonition, "Your writing will not save you."
September 9, 2008
This was a poignant read. I couldn't read it as fast as I normally do, it was written in such a thought provoking way. I have to be honest and say, I'm not looking forward to that phase of my life. Not because I don't want to take care of my parents, but because I don't know if I will be strong enough emotionally, to stop being their child.
August 13, 2010
This is Reeve Lindbergh's journal of her famous mother's last few years, years of memory loss and confusion. I found it very interesting to peek through the window, so to speak, of her mother's house on her daughter's farm and try to understand what it must be like for her--well, for both hers. The daughter has certainly inherited her mother's way with words. Here are some excerpts:
>I listen to the birds: the swallows in the early morning as I lie in bed, the thrushes at night as I walk up the road to my mother’s and down again. The wood thrush on the hill above her house sings a pure, liquid song of just a few notes, so brief that it is over before I can be sure of what I’m hearing. Then it repeats, and I identify it and feel satisfied. The veery, far off in the deep woods, sings a different, longer song. It starts sweet and high, then descends with rippling fluidity, like a piccolo imitating a waterfall.<
>In the garden I love to feel every movement of my body, large or small. I love to smell every scent of earth and bark and sweat and leaf. The pleasure I take in my garden is so physical, and so intense, that I imagine it should be illicit or, at the very least, fattening.<
>I remember driving her over a highway in New Hampshire only a year or two ago and being startled to hear her say in a loud voice, after a long silence, “I’m afraid of dying!”
I was moved almost to tears and tried to think of a way to respond sympathetically. Of course she was afraid of dying. She was frail, and weak, and ninety years old. “Yes, I can certainly understand that, Mother,” I offered gently, hoping she would talk further, that the talking might help her with her fear. “But what is it, exactly? Is it the thought of dying itself, a sense of pain and struggle, or is it leaving old friends, leaving the world, leaving your family…”
I struggled for other examples and felt myself warming up to this discussion, but she looked over at me with irritation and said firmly, from the passenger seat, “It’s your driving!”<
And this, at the very end:
> I looked past my mother’s pale, smooth forehead and cheekbone, past the still, carved oval of her closed eye, and saw the winter tree outside. And all at once there were birds in it. They were coming and sitting on the branches as I watched.
Two chickadees came, flittered, perched, and left. Then two juncos did the same, a pair that jumped playfully from limb to limb and chased each other, changing places, up and down. Last there was a blue jay, who perched solidly on a big lower branch and stayed there. Because of his sudden weight, a clump of snow descended, glittering into crystals as it fell.
Birds came, and left again, and came, and perched, and flew, and fluttered around the branches, just outside my mother’s window, just after she died. There were no birds there the day before. I know because I was sitting in exactly the same place, by my mother’s bed, at exactly the same time. I would have seen them. But on Wednesday morning, the moment of her death, the birds came and sat on the branches outside her window, while we were sitting inside in her room. I’m glad the birds came. In fact, I think I was expecting them.<
>I listen to the birds: the swallows in the early morning as I lie in bed, the thrushes at night as I walk up the road to my mother’s and down again. The wood thrush on the hill above her house sings a pure, liquid song of just a few notes, so brief that it is over before I can be sure of what I’m hearing. Then it repeats, and I identify it and feel satisfied. The veery, far off in the deep woods, sings a different, longer song. It starts sweet and high, then descends with rippling fluidity, like a piccolo imitating a waterfall.<
>In the garden I love to feel every movement of my body, large or small. I love to smell every scent of earth and bark and sweat and leaf. The pleasure I take in my garden is so physical, and so intense, that I imagine it should be illicit or, at the very least, fattening.<
>I remember driving her over a highway in New Hampshire only a year or two ago and being startled to hear her say in a loud voice, after a long silence, “I’m afraid of dying!”
I was moved almost to tears and tried to think of a way to respond sympathetically. Of course she was afraid of dying. She was frail, and weak, and ninety years old. “Yes, I can certainly understand that, Mother,” I offered gently, hoping she would talk further, that the talking might help her with her fear. “But what is it, exactly? Is it the thought of dying itself, a sense of pain and struggle, or is it leaving old friends, leaving the world, leaving your family…”
I struggled for other examples and felt myself warming up to this discussion, but she looked over at me with irritation and said firmly, from the passenger seat, “It’s your driving!”<
And this, at the very end:
> I looked past my mother’s pale, smooth forehead and cheekbone, past the still, carved oval of her closed eye, and saw the winter tree outside. And all at once there were birds in it. They were coming and sitting on the branches as I watched.
Two chickadees came, flittered, perched, and left. Then two juncos did the same, a pair that jumped playfully from limb to limb and chased each other, changing places, up and down. Last there was a blue jay, who perched solidly on a big lower branch and stayed there. Because of his sudden weight, a clump of snow descended, glittering into crystals as it fell.
Birds came, and left again, and came, and perched, and flew, and fluttered around the branches, just outside my mother’s window, just after she died. There were no birds there the day before. I know because I was sitting in exactly the same place, by my mother’s bed, at exactly the same time. I would have seen them. But on Wednesday morning, the moment of her death, the birds came and sat on the branches outside her window, while we were sitting inside in her room. I’m glad the birds came. In fact, I think I was expecting them.<
July 7, 2014
What a wonderful book this is! In her later years, Anne Lindbergh's youngest child, her daughter Reeve, moved her to Vermont in order to give quality care. Building a house on the property of their farm, Reeve and her husband Nat, devoted time and love to Anne.
While the other family members frequently visited, it was Reeve who was responsible for the day to day existence of Anne. This is Reeve's story of the sadness, the humor and the daily reflection of communicating with her mother.
Crediting the round-the-clock care takers, Reeve acknowledged that this was not something the average family could afford. Fortunately, the family was not alone in assisting Anne.
With the serene backdrop of the beauty of living in rural Vermont, and told in exceedingly powerful words that captured the feelings and thoughts of trying to communicate with a mother who, because of a series of strokes, and Alzheimer's disease, verbal communication was limited and confusing.
Childlike and stubborn, periodically Anne's actions were difficult to cope with and to understand. Reflecting on the life of the wife of Charles Lindberg, using some of the poems and works of Anne, this book shines from the first to the last page.
Highly recommended!!
While the other family members frequently visited, it was Reeve who was responsible for the day to day existence of Anne. This is Reeve's story of the sadness, the humor and the daily reflection of communicating with her mother.
Crediting the round-the-clock care takers, Reeve acknowledged that this was not something the average family could afford. Fortunately, the family was not alone in assisting Anne.
With the serene backdrop of the beauty of living in rural Vermont, and told in exceedingly powerful words that captured the feelings and thoughts of trying to communicate with a mother who, because of a series of strokes, and Alzheimer's disease, verbal communication was limited and confusing.
Childlike and stubborn, periodically Anne's actions were difficult to cope with and to understand. Reflecting on the life of the wife of Charles Lindberg, using some of the poems and works of Anne, this book shines from the first to the last page.
Highly recommended!!
November 30, 2018
One of the loveliest and at times funniest books about what it's like to be with your mother in her final years, especially because Reeve Lindbergh's mother was famous and also a wonderful writer.
December 10, 2024
I reviewed one of Anne Morrow Lindbergh’s books for a previous Novellas in November, Gift from the Sea. She was also a poet and aviator. Reeve Lindbergh’s memoir focuses on the last year and a half of her mother’s life, 1999–2001. At this point she was in her early nineties and mostly nonverbal after a series of mini-strokes. She moved to live with her daughter on a Vermont farm and had carers to attend to her daily needs. It’s painful for the whole family to watch someone who was so fond of words gradually lose the ability to communicate. There are still moments of connection and possible memory, as when she reads her mother’s work aloud to her, and even humour, as they eat the messiest possible strawberry shortcake. It is an easy dying: her nurses are gentle and respectful, and she lives significantly longer than anyone predicted. Along the way, we get glimpses of the running of the farm, such as bottle-feeding an abandoned lamb, and of repeated tragedies from the family’s history: the Charles Lindberghs’ first child died in a botched kidnapping attempt at age one, and Reeve also lost a son at a similar age. “It is good just to sit next to my mother, whom I have known and loved for so long,” she writes. These low-key thoughts on age, infirmity and anticipatory grief were nicely done, but won’t likely stay with me.
Originally published on my blog, Bookish Beck.
Originally published on my blog, Bookish Beck.
August 24, 2014
I liked this book. I know I rated it "I really liked it" so let me say more. First I read The Aviator's Wife (which I liked but at times found tedious) but I enjoyed the [fact based] story enough to continue. So then I read A Gift from the Sea which was a sweet, fast read comparing shells to relationships. I thought the author of Aviator's Wife wrote a little bit whiny. Not saying Anne didn't have things to complain about but I thought the author told the story in a whiny fashion if that makes sense. Hence I felt compelled to read something Anne herself wrote and knowing the story of her life, I related to her shells analogies based on her story and based on my own experiences. Lastly, I read this No More Words book by Reeve. Glad to have read the books in this order and glad to have read all three. I found this book to be honest and heart felt and easy to read.
March 18, 2017
This lovely book by Anne's daughter recounts the last two years of her life when she lived in Vermont and was cared for by Reeve as she slowly progressed toward her death. A series of strokes took away most of her mother's ability to speak and Reeve is initially upset and floundering by the lack of communication from a woman whose words deeply influenced her daughter. As Reeve tells the story of how she comes to terms with her mother's loss of words and her decline, Reeve learns about herself, about life and death, and about family. I found it touching and sweet and anyone who has watched a loved one pass on will relate to all the varied feelings that experience evokes.
May 14, 2011
Anne Morrow Lindbergh, in her early nineties, moved to her daughter Reeve's farm because a series of small strokes left her unable to completely care for herself. In this book, Reeve gently chronicles her mother's last seventeen months. Anyone who cares for aged parents (or even thinks about that eventuality) will benefit from Reeve's words. I was surprised to read my own feelings articulated in a way I never could have expressed. I found this little book a great comfort.
November 4, 2015
One would not think that reading about the final, slow recession of life into death would make for a wonderful read, but you would be wrong. This slim novel chronicles the final year of someone whose journals and novels I have read throughout my life - Anne Morrow Lindberg. Told by her youngest child, Reeve (herself and exceptional writer) with compssion, wit and insight, No More Words describes an intimate look at someone taking the opportunity to embrace/endure this final life cycle.
May 30, 2017
Beautiful. Tender.
November 7, 2020
I thought this was going to be a journal written by Anne Morrow Lindbergh, but it isn't. It's sort of her daughter Reeve's journal, but more like long essays expanded from some of her journal entries including a bit of poetry from her mother and others. It's a book about how Reeve feels about her aging/dying mother. It's about change and loss and anticipation of death.
It also shows some of Reeve's privileged lifestyle. Her mother has round-the-clock care from health-care professionals in a separate home a hundred feet away on Reeve's farm in Vermont. Reeve doesn't have to provide any of her mother's hands-on care unless she wants to. She doesn't need to go visit her mother every day. She can go home whenever she wants and sleeps in her own bed every night. This seems to free up her mind and emotions to deal with her own losses. This is not the way most people experience aging parents leave this world.
I like how words matter to Reeve and how her mother's silence challenges her. I like Anne Lindbergh's poetry and would like to read more of it. I'm not interested to reading more by Reeve Lindbergh.
I don't think I'd recommend this book. I didn't find it particularly uplifting. At the same time, it was fairly easy to read and brought to mind thoughts of my grandmother when she was dying of cancer.
It also shows some of Reeve's privileged lifestyle. Her mother has round-the-clock care from health-care professionals in a separate home a hundred feet away on Reeve's farm in Vermont. Reeve doesn't have to provide any of her mother's hands-on care unless she wants to. She doesn't need to go visit her mother every day. She can go home whenever she wants and sleeps in her own bed every night. This seems to free up her mind and emotions to deal with her own losses. This is not the way most people experience aging parents leave this world.
I like how words matter to Reeve and how her mother's silence challenges her. I like Anne Lindbergh's poetry and would like to read more of it. I'm not interested to reading more by Reeve Lindbergh.
I don't think I'd recommend this book. I didn't find it particularly uplifting. At the same time, it was fairly easy to read and brought to mind thoughts of my grandmother when she was dying of cancer.
August 5, 2023
This is one of those books that, I feel, makes adults more excited than children. Four sections (For the Day, For the Home, For the Earth, For the Night) are illustrated by four different artists. Prayers across religions are included, which is a neat way to introduce children to how people pray across time and place. Yet, not all of the selections are prayers! A quote from Anne Frank's diary, a non-prayer poem by Walt Whitman, "Pippa's Song" by Robert Browning--lovely words, but not prayers to me. There are 2-4 prayers on most spreads, which makes the book lack a contemplative feel since they don't have individual illustrations for each. It's a book I'm glad to have around, but not one that I find very invigorating.
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March 23, 2017Appreciated the insight via the daughter/caregiver internal struggles and private thinking.
pg 20 i make so many assumptions in my love for this person who is very old and very quiet..
23-24 just take care of her. that was all i had to do. i didn't have to understand her or identify with her.
26 home. going home. i'm not so sure about this kind of thinking, though. is it her wish that she be released from the burden of her aging body and her drifting mind, or is it mine? This is always the question when one tries to interpret the wishes of someone who makes us uncomfortable and who cannot speak for herself. someone else's silence is a vast field of temptation, and open invitation on which to project ones own conscious or unconscious thoughts.
37
47 What am i trying to do, anyway? Establish some kind of cozy relationship with death? my own death in rehearsal? How can anyone realistically expect to prepare for any death at all?
51 The vital, thinking individual who signs a living will soon after diagnosis, when the prospect of death is unreal and inconceivable and far away, is not the same person who begs for painkillers, or gasps for water or shouts in delirium, or lies silent with parched mouth opening and shutting inexplicably over and over at the end. What is "help" at this point? What has meaning?
57-58 in the meantime, we cannot make predictions. We cannot make plans. We must instead live a border life and make concessions to both sides--a little life here, a little death there. Does my mother know? does she feel that people around her, people who love her, are yearning for her death? I'm not sure..but i definitely want the end of her frustration, and my own. I want this, knowing that when the frustration ends, I will not necessarily feel satisfaction or release, not for more than a brief time. I know that what is in store for me after the frustration ends is grief, and that grief, too, is long and anything but simple. I know grief well, and i dread it, but i look forward to it too. It will be, at least, a change.
59 (why, oh why, do i always have to talk?)
63
79 I think she accepts what is offered out of ingrained politeness but would be perfectly content to sit and stare and do nothing else. The rest of us are not content with this, however. It makes us uncomfortable. We want her to be doing something, thinking something, reading something, participating in some way that we can understand.
84-85 she doesn't need to love, she needs to be loved just now. she is not talking to me because... i have betrayed her--i don't know what that means, but i have suspected it ever since i began to take care of her, ten years ago. she did not want care, and my insistence seemed a betrayal.
117-118
122 Let's do nothing. I said. at least for a while. This is my favorite solution to a lot of problems in the family, and it often works surprisingly well.
135 Language is limited at the best of times. What really goes on in this world is beyond words, and the truth of it whatever that is, comes through to us in mystery, always taking its own sweet time.
141 motherhood is much more powerful than politics and always was
145 it was clear to me that her Jesus was the one of my childhood: blue-eyed and surrounded by lambs and children, with nothing but love and forgiveness in his message.
172 Thou madest me for Thyself, and my heart is restless until it repose in Thee
pg 20 i make so many assumptions in my love for this person who is very old and very quiet..
23-24 just take care of her. that was all i had to do. i didn't have to understand her or identify with her.
26 home. going home. i'm not so sure about this kind of thinking, though. is it her wish that she be released from the burden of her aging body and her drifting mind, or is it mine? This is always the question when one tries to interpret the wishes of someone who makes us uncomfortable and who cannot speak for herself. someone else's silence is a vast field of temptation, and open invitation on which to project ones own conscious or unconscious thoughts.
37
47 What am i trying to do, anyway? Establish some kind of cozy relationship with death? my own death in rehearsal? How can anyone realistically expect to prepare for any death at all?
51 The vital, thinking individual who signs a living will soon after diagnosis, when the prospect of death is unreal and inconceivable and far away, is not the same person who begs for painkillers, or gasps for water or shouts in delirium, or lies silent with parched mouth opening and shutting inexplicably over and over at the end. What is "help" at this point? What has meaning?
57-58 in the meantime, we cannot make predictions. We cannot make plans. We must instead live a border life and make concessions to both sides--a little life here, a little death there. Does my mother know? does she feel that people around her, people who love her, are yearning for her death? I'm not sure..but i definitely want the end of her frustration, and my own. I want this, knowing that when the frustration ends, I will not necessarily feel satisfaction or release, not for more than a brief time. I know that what is in store for me after the frustration ends is grief, and that grief, too, is long and anything but simple. I know grief well, and i dread it, but i look forward to it too. It will be, at least, a change.
59 (why, oh why, do i always have to talk?)
63
79 I think she accepts what is offered out of ingrained politeness but would be perfectly content to sit and stare and do nothing else. The rest of us are not content with this, however. It makes us uncomfortable. We want her to be doing something, thinking something, reading something, participating in some way that we can understand.
84-85 she doesn't need to love, she needs to be loved just now. she is not talking to me because... i have betrayed her--i don't know what that means, but i have suspected it ever since i began to take care of her, ten years ago. she did not want care, and my insistence seemed a betrayal.
117-118
122 Let's do nothing. I said. at least for a while. This is my favorite solution to a lot of problems in the family, and it often works surprisingly well.
135 Language is limited at the best of times. What really goes on in this world is beyond words, and the truth of it whatever that is, comes through to us in mystery, always taking its own sweet time.
141 motherhood is much more powerful than politics and always was
145 it was clear to me that her Jesus was the one of my childhood: blue-eyed and surrounded by lambs and children, with nothing but love and forgiveness in his message.
172 Thou madest me for Thyself, and my heart is restless until it repose in Thee
March 17, 2013
This was Reeve Lindbergh’s description of how she shared the final months of her famous mother’s life. In her later years, Anne Morrow Lindbergh was stricken with Alzheimer’s and left basically speechless following a series of small strokes. ‘Age and illness have silenced her now, and she lives in silence to such a degree that speech, when it does come, seems unfamiliar to her, her voice hoarse and thick with the difficulty brought on by disuse, a rustiness of pipes and joints too long unlubricated by their once normal flow,’ The family decided that it would be best to move her to Reeve’s farm in Vermont. There, surrounded by caretakers, Anne spent the last part of her life in her own house, a short walk from Reeve’s.
It seems courageous and generous of the author to share such an intimate journey. She confesses her feelings of helplessness, and admits to being unnerved by the quiet from a mother with such a great gift for language. While painful at times, there was humor at the seeming absurdities, and warmth, and above all a deep, abiding love. Mother and daughter had a common bond in their love of nature. The antics of the farm animals are a frequent source of delight for Reeve, and her passion for gardening is clear! ‘I watch for deer at the edges of the fields at dusk, while I’m taking laundry off the clothesline, and when I see them, the sight brings tears to my eyes. I don’t know why. I garden in my perennial beds in the late afternoons with an eagerness that is close to gluttony. Digging and weeding and planting and tending my flowers, all this serves some primitive instinct, so that I feel much more like a pig rooting for truffles than a woman staking her delphiniums, or pulling up witch grass…..’
This was beautifully written. There were flashbacks, and contrasts, while Reeve remembered her mother as she’d once been, and accepted the present. ‘In a situation like mine, there is memory and there is frustration, and there is grief and there is guilt. In fact, there is more guilt than anything else.’ I found a great deal of comfort, as well as wisdom within these pages.
It seems courageous and generous of the author to share such an intimate journey. She confesses her feelings of helplessness, and admits to being unnerved by the quiet from a mother with such a great gift for language. While painful at times, there was humor at the seeming absurdities, and warmth, and above all a deep, abiding love. Mother and daughter had a common bond in their love of nature. The antics of the farm animals are a frequent source of delight for Reeve, and her passion for gardening is clear! ‘I watch for deer at the edges of the fields at dusk, while I’m taking laundry off the clothesline, and when I see them, the sight brings tears to my eyes. I don’t know why. I garden in my perennial beds in the late afternoons with an eagerness that is close to gluttony. Digging and weeding and planting and tending my flowers, all this serves some primitive instinct, so that I feel much more like a pig rooting for truffles than a woman staking her delphiniums, or pulling up witch grass…..’
This was beautifully written. There were flashbacks, and contrasts, while Reeve remembered her mother as she’d once been, and accepted the present. ‘In a situation like mine, there is memory and there is frustration, and there is grief and there is guilt. In fact, there is more guilt than anything else.’ I found a great deal of comfort, as well as wisdom within these pages.
August 28, 2020
I first read this book as an admirer of Anne Morrow Lindbergh, after I finished her biography, this book would give me the rest of her story. I was either just starting college or maybe volunteer work that would lead me to my eventual career in health care. This time I read this book not only to conclude a biography, but also as someone who has lost her mother and who has had a long career caring for seniors many who are in similar condition to Mrs. Lindbergh. I think because of my life experiences I not only enjoyed this book more, but I found it more readable. It helped me see the residents in my care differently, their family members differently, I saw my own experiences reflected in the pages. I saw myself caring for my grandfather after his stroke, reading him the newspaper while he sat silently in his chair, or wheeling him outside for fresh air. I saw my own family's frustrations and guilt as grandpa lingered on ever so close to the end but not yet ready to cross over. This book made me both happy and sad about my own relationship with my mother. Happy that she never lived long enough to suffer a stroke or dementia or those diseases that steal you away, happy that her death was a quick very peaceful one not dragged out to the point where you can only wonder if we are prolonging suffering. But also sad, sad that she never grew old, remained forever 59, never saw various milestones, new houses, job promotions, new family members. Sad to have lost that special bond only mothers and daughters seem to have, though even in death there is still a bond. The book is told with humour and grace, looks at the absurdities of life, details the guilt Reeve feels for sometimes wondering when her mother will just die already? The pain and resentment of feeling unloved by her often unresponsive mother, all is captured so well in these pages and I would highly recommend to anyone who has lost a parent or is currently struggling with a dying parent, or for those who work in healthcare and have to face the harsh reality of end of life care on a daily basis. This book will offer you hope and assure you that you are not alone in your struggle.
November 30, 2009
Reeve Lindbergh's touching journal of the last two years of her mother Anne Morrow Lindbergh's life after a series of small strokes left her mostly speechless. Mrs Lindbergh had a home on the property where Reeve and her family lived and had caretakers to care for her and take care of her personal needs each day.Reeve visited with her each evening for several hours and the book is a journal of those visits and visits from other family members during this time. The book also includes many poems written by Mrs Lindbergh over the course of her life. I have read many books about the Lindbergh family and Reeve is a favorite writer of mine. I always like the way she presents the material and she speaks to me like someone that I have known for a long time. I would also highly recommend Forward From Here-Leaving Middle Age and Other Unexpected Adventures and Under A Wing both memoirs by Reeve.
April 27, 2012
A tender, thoughtful memoir of author Reeve Lindbergh's visits with her 93-year-old mother, Anne Morrow Lindbergh, during the last 15 months of her life. Reeve learns the preciousness of just spending time with those you love with or, even better at times, without words. True companionship and love is acceptance... of the situations we find ourselves in which may be beyond our control, of limitations we might have in communicating, of simply spending time together with no expectations. At times humorous, at times sad, but reflective and moving as Reeve learns to not only accept her mother's inevitably increasing frailty and eventual death, but finds herself more comfortable with the person she has become. Particularly a good book for those who have aging parents, are caregivers, or who seek greater love and understanding among all.
April 26, 2017
To live with honesty and courage while filled to overflowing with responsibilities is an inspiration to me. To create islands of time to be with a loved one who is dying is heroic. One never knows when the hour of death will come. There is no way to know the day, the hour.
Reeve personifies the hopes and humor of a loving daughter in charge of the care of her mother. Although more fortunate than most (lack of money is not an issue, and the siblings communicate often), Reeve pays daily visits to her famous mother, best-selling author, diarist, and the widow of Charles Lindbergh. Anne, who suffers dementia, lives in a little house on a hill, walking distance from Reeve's farmhouse in Vermont.
No More Words is as much about Reeve as it is about her talented and world-famous mother. It is an absorbing read.
Reeve personifies the hopes and humor of a loving daughter in charge of the care of her mother. Although more fortunate than most (lack of money is not an issue, and the siblings communicate often), Reeve pays daily visits to her famous mother, best-selling author, diarist, and the widow of Charles Lindbergh. Anne, who suffers dementia, lives in a little house on a hill, walking distance from Reeve's farmhouse in Vermont.
No More Words is as much about Reeve as it is about her talented and world-famous mother. It is an absorbing read.
November 6, 2022
Reeve Lindbergh, youngest daughter of Anne Morrow Lindbergh and famed aviator Charles Lindbergh, relates the final seventeen months of her mother's life which take place in Vermont on the family farm. This memoir begins with mother Anne at age 93 and it resonated immediately with me since my own mother is now 93 years of age.
Due to a series of small strokes, Anne is speechless for the most part but this daughter walks from her farmhouse to her mother's little cabin nearby and sits with her for a couple hours every day. Considering that "words" were the tools of her mother's life and "words" are also the tools of Reeve's life, there is cause for occasional frustration. But what rings most clearly is the beauty of this mother/daughter relationship. Reeve's musings are honest and insightful.
This is a beautiful tribute and testament to a daughter's love and a mother's life.
Due to a series of small strokes, Anne is speechless for the most part but this daughter walks from her farmhouse to her mother's little cabin nearby and sits with her for a couple hours every day. Considering that "words" were the tools of her mother's life and "words" are also the tools of Reeve's life, there is cause for occasional frustration. But what rings most clearly is the beauty of this mother/daughter relationship. Reeve's musings are honest and insightful.
This is a beautiful tribute and testament to a daughter's love and a mother's life.
January 2, 2011
I almost wish I hadn't read this book but only because the poignancy and beauty in writing has left me with an actual ache. Rarely if ever has a book impacted me in this way. I feel as if I need "a good cry."
There is something about Reeve Lindbergh's writing that just grabs me and calls out to me. She embodies the phrase "too good to put down" and I am always a tad obsessed with her writings for days afterward.
Even the title "No More Words" is achingly beautiful when applied to someone as prolific and talented as her mother, Anne Morrow Lindbergh.
There are no more words, indeed, for the legacy of beautiful words Ms. Lindbergh, and her mother, have left on our world. I wish only that their family's story hadn't been so painful and marked with tragedy.
There is something about Reeve Lindbergh's writing that just grabs me and calls out to me. She embodies the phrase "too good to put down" and I am always a tad obsessed with her writings for days afterward.
Even the title "No More Words" is achingly beautiful when applied to someone as prolific and talented as her mother, Anne Morrow Lindbergh.
There are no more words, indeed, for the legacy of beautiful words Ms. Lindbergh, and her mother, have left on our world. I wish only that their family's story hadn't been so painful and marked with tragedy.
August 13, 2016
Ann Morrow Lindbergh died September 7, 2001 and her daughter kept a journal of their interactions and memories as well as every day events in the life of a farm in Vermont. Many thoughts on aging and care of elderly are reflected in her. Also the relationship between a mother and daughter is shown by the variations in their day to day living. Ann has lost nearly all of her ability to speak. So most of her contributions are either small croaks of discernible words or nonverbal communication.
The most striking parts of this are the excerpts from each authors books. The selections of Ann's early poems and excerpts of her Gift's From The Sea bring responses from the silent Ann. The most important responses are of course from her daughter and her reconciliation with Ann's upcoming death.
The most striking parts of this are the excerpts from each authors books. The selections of Ann's early poems and excerpts of her Gift's From The Sea bring responses from the silent Ann. The most important responses are of course from her daughter and her reconciliation with Ann's upcoming death.
June 9, 2011
Beautifully written--almost prose more than just narrative. Honest and insightful as she shares her feelings of the last year and a half of her mother's life. As she comes to terms and learns to cherish her moments with her mother, Anne Morrow Lindbergh,famous aviator who made history with her flight from New York to Paris, renowned writer, educated woman, who now in her 90's suffers from dementia and goes for days in unresponsive silence, you get a sense of the the fragile yet dignified life that is coming to a close and the new kind of relationship that her daughter must develop with her.
January 11, 2014
I'm really enjoying this lovely, heartfelt and true account of Anne Lindbergh's last months as told by her daughter who watched over her during that time. Reeve Lindbergh is a fine writer in her own right and is at her best as she describes in simple straightforward terms how it was to watch her wise, intelligent, accomplished mother lose her faculties and approach her end. Having been through a similar experience with my own mother it is fascinating to read so many similarities in our experiences, although the exact health problems were mainly quite different. Highly recommended.
June 11, 2008
The title "No More Words" refers to the time in a person's physical/mental decline when they are no longer able to speak, and the sorrow this brings. This book affected me profoundly because it describes similar feelings I had--good, bad, and ugly--when my mother suffered from dementia in her declining years. For anyone who is dealing with mental decline in a relative or friend, please read this book as it will help you to cope. I wish I'd had it many years ago!
February 9, 2010
Great concept, draws on diverse sources. Love the Anne Frank quote. Hate that it does nothing to explain/refer elsewhere for the sources of quotes, as there are certainly names I didn't recognize. Found it extremely hard to read straight through. Good to see diversity in the illustrations (style) too, although I'm not sure I loved 'em. Didn't like/understand the selection of some quotes, although I'm sure that's always the case with such things.
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