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Waterboy: Making sense of my son's suicide
‘The hole gapes still. It always will. And I fall in periodically.'Durban-based journalist Glynis Horning and her husband Chris woke one Sunday morning to the devastating discovery of their 25-year-old son Spencer dead in his bed. Surrounded by loving family and friends, Horning pieces together the puzzle of his death, writing with a visceral intensity of loss and grief, but also of the joys of celebrating her son's life. Waterboy will touch anyone who has directly or indirectly experienced this ultimate heartbreak. Her wisdom and insight are extraordinary.
258 pages, Kindle Edition
Published August 26, 2021
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
October 13, 2024
Disclaimer: BookstormZA kindly sent me a copy of this memoir in exchange for an honest review.
In Waterboy Durban-based journalist and freelance writer, Glynis Horning recounts the loss of her 25-year-old son Spencer to suicide in 2019. This is an account of the days, weeks, and months after he tragically took his life on September 15, 2019.
After Horning discovered Spencer's body the business of death and its aftermath is the fuel that keeps a mother going. She continues to go for daily swims at the local pool with her supportive (and equally devastated) husband, and even though the pain of losing a child is undeniable, Glynis wakes up every morning for her younger son Ewan - a voice of reason, calm, and compassion amidst a devastating world that no longer makes sense.
Horning often refers to the healing power of water, but the human connection to a reality outside of her grief aids in her healing. She often refers to her 'trinity' - three women who have kept her loved and supported throughout this process, and to her husband Chris, whose grief is just as immense as her own.
In the days after his death, Horning pours over her son's suicide note and tries to make sense of it. Soon after she is dealt an extra blow in the form of having to put a family pet to sleep, and then learning that her long-time domestic worker's husband has also passed away suddenly. Surrounded by so much death, grief, and loss, Horning struggles to deal with all the sudden death.
Horning's journey includes conventional therapy, and an acknowledgment that her son suffered from severe clinical depression, and a rare blood disorder. Months before his death Spencer decided to stop taking his medication. His internet searches proved even more telling - a morbid obsession with death, the act of suicide, and his concrete plans to end his life in his own way.
There are the moral dilemmas that Horning, and essentially all those loved ones left behind have to try and figure out. There is the guilt, and then there is the attempt to understand an act so desperate we are not all able to comprehend such a final act of defiance.
As an outsider glancing in, as a stranger being allowed such an intimate insight into a grieving mother and family, and as a mere reader Horning makes us question our mortality, and understand why anyone would take their own life. It is not for us to judge, but we must choose to ask why.
Horning's prose is haunting, beautiful, and devastating, and all the emotions one would accept from such a loss. Within that grief there is also an eagerness to understand the place her son found himself in, and all the while dealing with a world on the verge of a global pandemic, and a South Africa destroyed by load-shedding and crime. Though Horning's memoir is heartbreaking, it is also filled with hope. Waterboy is a beautifully written and insightful delve into suicide, mental health health, and loss.
In Waterboy Durban-based journalist and freelance writer, Glynis Horning recounts the loss of her 25-year-old son Spencer to suicide in 2019. This is an account of the days, weeks, and months after he tragically took his life on September 15, 2019.
After Horning discovered Spencer's body the business of death and its aftermath is the fuel that keeps a mother going. She continues to go for daily swims at the local pool with her supportive (and equally devastated) husband, and even though the pain of losing a child is undeniable, Glynis wakes up every morning for her younger son Ewan - a voice of reason, calm, and compassion amidst a devastating world that no longer makes sense.
Horning often refers to the healing power of water, but the human connection to a reality outside of her grief aids in her healing. She often refers to her 'trinity' - three women who have kept her loved and supported throughout this process, and to her husband Chris, whose grief is just as immense as her own.
In the days after his death, Horning pours over her son's suicide note and tries to make sense of it. Soon after she is dealt an extra blow in the form of having to put a family pet to sleep, and then learning that her long-time domestic worker's husband has also passed away suddenly. Surrounded by so much death, grief, and loss, Horning struggles to deal with all the sudden death.
Horning's journey includes conventional therapy, and an acknowledgment that her son suffered from severe clinical depression, and a rare blood disorder. Months before his death Spencer decided to stop taking his medication. His internet searches proved even more telling - a morbid obsession with death, the act of suicide, and his concrete plans to end his life in his own way.
There are the moral dilemmas that Horning, and essentially all those loved ones left behind have to try and figure out. There is the guilt, and then there is the attempt to understand an act so desperate we are not all able to comprehend such a final act of defiance.
As an outsider glancing in, as a stranger being allowed such an intimate insight into a grieving mother and family, and as a mere reader Horning makes us question our mortality, and understand why anyone would take their own life. It is not for us to judge, but we must choose to ask why.
Horning's prose is haunting, beautiful, and devastating, and all the emotions one would accept from such a loss. Within that grief there is also an eagerness to understand the place her son found himself in, and all the while dealing with a world on the verge of a global pandemic, and a South Africa destroyed by load-shedding and crime. Though Horning's memoir is heartbreaking, it is also filled with hope. Waterboy is a beautifully written and insightful delve into suicide, mental health health, and loss.
November 6, 2021
This is a very hard book to read especially if suicide has also visited your shores. The pain, the guilt, the seeking for answers, for ways back to 'before'. Glynis Horning is so brave to share her first year after her son's suicide, like a diary entry. She writes with raw honesty and brings in the stories of other losses experienced and the start of the Coronavirus pandemic in South Africa. I could not sleep after finishing it and was awake at 2am wondering if she was too.
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December 30, 2021Heartbreaking.
Beautifully written.
Beautifully written.
February 6, 2022
I struggled to read this book. Mostly for my tears, that made the text as if under water.
October 23, 2023
Beautiful writing and very harrowing. Found it repetitive and difficult to embrace. The writing style was hard to follow
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews