Bruce Lee Helped Me Come to Terms With the Death of My Son
January 4, 2017 7:43 AM Subscribe
"No matter what we were doing there, one constant seemed to be that on many days someone would wander over or call to us from afar, “Hey, do you know where Bruce Lee is buried?” Bill Radke talks to Linda Dahlstrom Anderson, a Seattle journalist and editor at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, about how Bruce Lee's grave at Lake View Cemetery in Seattle helped her come to terms with the loss of her 7-month-old son Phoenix.
I made it to the part where the stranger left a note and a photo of his kids before having to stop. Not gonna burst into tears on the train to work.
posted by pipoquinha at 8:16 AM on January 4, 2017 [2 favorites]
posted by pipoquinha at 8:16 AM on January 4, 2017 [2 favorites]
Yeah the thing about the note made me tear up at work too. Such a lovely gesture.
posted by sevenyearlurk at 9:06 AM on January 4, 2017 [2 favorites]
posted by sevenyearlurk at 9:06 AM on January 4, 2017 [2 favorites]
Linda has given us views into her private experience of the death of her son many times over the years. As an former coworker of hers, and as someone who also lost a child, I'm grateful that she casts some light onto that particularly shadowy part of the human experience.
I'm also a little discomfited, I think because I try to imagine myself doing what she does, and I can't. I can't imagine reprocessing those emotions over and over, myself. For me, I don't think it would be healthy -- that's not the way my brain's wired. I think I would spiral downward.
I'm so, so glad it's the way her brain is wired, though. Reading her stories has helped me process my own feelings. Just as importantly, she's used her experience to advocate for child vaccination. Sometimes I feel like I should be using my experience in a similar way. But nope.
posted by gurple at 9:22 AM on January 4, 2017 [6 favorites]
I'm also a little discomfited, I think because I try to imagine myself doing what she does, and I can't. I can't imagine reprocessing those emotions over and over, myself. For me, I don't think it would be healthy -- that's not the way my brain's wired. I think I would spiral downward.
I'm so, so glad it's the way her brain is wired, though. Reading her stories has helped me process my own feelings. Just as importantly, she's used her experience to advocate for child vaccination. Sometimes I feel like I should be using my experience in a similar way. But nope.
posted by gurple at 9:22 AM on January 4, 2017 [6 favorites]
Thank you for sharing this, it's beautiful and very moving.
Her name and writing seemed familiar and I worked out it was from this previous FPP. There as here she expressed herself incredibly eloquently.
posted by *becca* at 3:21 AM on January 5, 2017
Her name and writing seemed familiar and I worked out it was from this previous FPP. There as here she expressed herself incredibly eloquently.
posted by *becca* at 3:21 AM on January 5, 2017
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