Shine Your Light Before Darkness Falls

You can't turn back the clock you can't turn back the tide Ain't that a shame I'd like to go back one time on a roller coaster ride When life was just a game No use in sitting and thinkin' on what you did When you can lay back and enjoy it through your kids Sometimes it seems like lately I just don't know Better sit back and go with the flow

Cos these are the days of our lives They've flown in the swiftness of time These days are all gone now but some things remain When I look and I find no change

These Are the Days of Our Lives - Queen

Tomorrow leave the windows open As fear grows please hold me in your arms Won't you help me if you can to shake this anger? I need your gentle hands to keep me calm

'Cause I never thought I'd lose I only thought I'd win I never dreamed I'd feel this fire beneath my skin I can't believe you love me I never thought you'd come I guess I misjudged love between a father and his son

The Last Song - Elton John

I like reading books based on history. I like the truth in the story. I find history fascinating because the reason why people write about it, is so hopefully, humanity can learn from it. There is some kind of acceptance when you read a story based on history, because if it has already happened, then you think you won't react any different when you read about it. Let me tell you, that is not true. Not to go to the extreme of this book making me bawl my eyes out, which I didn't, but it's just that this book did stir up feelings that I was unsure I had.

I rated this book a 4 out of 5 and let me tell you why. It was a beautiful read overall. The family dynamic, the toxicity in each character, the way the book was written, the emotion behind some scenes were just incredible, and honestly so much more. There were random little hidden gems that really made you piece together things about the characters, about their relationships with each other, etc. The only reason why I knocked it down one point was, in part, one of the main reasons why I liked it so much; the writing style. This writing style isn't typically a book that I pick up on a daily. The conversations are very clipped and sometimes it is hard to keep up with the plot of the story. Sometimes the characters mention things that confuse you and you are unsure why the topic was even brought up. Then sometimes they won't go into detail on something that you wish they would go into detail on so then you're stuck on it for a few pages until you inevitably forget why you were confused in the first place. It is a type of style that can start off slow, get more interesting, get slow again and then interesting again. It is something that you have to stick with to get to the end to fully enjoy it. The book wholly within itself was written beautifully, there is no doubt about that, but it could be a little hard to focus at times.

To start off, this book begins with introducing you to one of our main characters, Helen. Helen, her husband Hugh, and two sons, Cathal and Manus, live in Dublin, Ireland during the 1990s. The story starts off with Helen and Hugh throwing a party at their house, with some of their good friends. One of the "friends" ends up being a friend of Helen's brother, Declan. Later on, Helen and Hugh plan a trip to drive their sons to a friend's place and before the trip, Paul, Declan's friend, stops by Helen's work, to tell Helen that her brother is sick and that he is requesting her to go visit him in the hospital in Dublin. Hugh and the boys continue their trip, and with Helen and Paul on the way to the hospital to visit Declan, Paul tells Helen that Declan has been living with AIDs for 2 years. Paul explains to Helen the Declan has been afraid to tell her and the rest of the family. Once Helen gets to the hospital and speaks to Declan, he asks Helen to be the one to tell their mother, Lily, and grandmother, Dora about his condition. Helen then worries how she is going to tell both women and who to tell first. Spoiler alert, she tells her grandmother first.

The book's main focus is on Declan's fight against AIDs and the progression of Helen reuniting with her grandmother and her mother, as well as introducing Declan's two friends, Paul and Larry, who join in on the journey. Helen ends up driving to her grandmother's house, located in Cush, where she then decides to stay the night before taking the trip to speak with her mother. Instead of going to Lily's house, Helen goes to where Lily works to tell her the news about Declan. Come to find out that this will be Helen's first time seeing her mother in 10 years. Helen speaks with Lily and the two travel back to Dublin to see Declan. Declan's doctors tell him that he can be released from the hospital, but will probably need to come back within the next few days. Declan then decides that he wants to spend the time that he has left at his grandmother's house. While there, Declan's condition worsens. He has good days and bad, but you start to wonder if Declan will be making it to the end of the book since the main focus of the story is around Declan's health. Now it was never stated that Declan had a set number of days left, but Paul said a few times in the story that Declan has had "bad days like this before and has gotten past it". Once you hear things like that, you automatically think that the book will have Declan's funeral towards the middle and all his remaining loved ones will bond over their love of Declan. Nope. That is not what happened.

As I stated previous, the style of writing is quite clipped and sometimes the way the characters speak is confusing. Well once Declan makes the decision to stay at his grandmother's, Helen, Lily, Paul and Larry all stay at Dora's house together. The book shows multiple examples of each of these characters relationships with each other, and how they try to get through the struggles of taking care of Declan, for the sake of Declan. Now with Declan's health being the fore front of this story, there is more that I think needs to be mentioned if you wish to read this book.

A main background detail of this book I think is healing deep wounds, and one of the most important wounds is Helen's relationship with her mother. Throughout the story you get little snippets of Helen and Lily's relationship, as well as Lily and Dora's relationship, but both are ones that need help mending.

You learn later in the story that Helen and Declan's dad passed away while the kids were pretty young, and that is where Helen started to have issues with her mother. While her father was sick, Lily sent both Helen and Declan to live with their grandparents. In one of the later chapters Helen admits to her mother that she could never understand why Lily left Declan and herself to live with their grandparents and didn't visit them once. She tells Lily how Declan and her felt abandoned, even though they were physically with their grandparents, and were being taken care of, they still had that feeling of abandonment. Helen admits that is what has been eating away at her all these years and that she took that abandonment to heart. Based on how Helen talks about her mother, and to her mother, you get the sense that Helen does not respect her, and with the abandonment weighing down her heart, it makes sense. She thinks that her mother doesn't like or respect her either, let alone love her. In truth, some things that Lily does or says, almost cross the line of deliberately hurting her daughter, but that will be an opinion for you as a reader to form. You do come to find out that Lily wished her daughter was someone that Helen was not. Someone who cared about the color of Lily's curtains in her house, or dress fabric, and a daughter who took interest in her mother. Helen tries to explain to her mother that she wishes for things about her children as well, such as for one of them to play the guitar, as an example, but that she lives with her boys as they are. She doesn't try to make them into someone they aren't and that she wishes her mother stopped wishing she was someone else as well. This puts into perspective the kind of relationship Helen and Lily have, as well as the emotions they have both held onto for years. It is a deep wound that needs healing and it will take time.

Other examples of healing wounds I think come into play is with the AIDs storyline. Lily and Dora did not know that Declan was gay up until this point in the story, and therefore didn't know Larry and Paul were gay as well. Now keep in mind this was Ireland in the 1990s, and this was during the AIDs Crisis. The word "gay" and the sexual orientation of being gay was not really accepted and the idea that Declan was gay and had AIDs, well it was something that wasn't spoken about. Once Declan's grandmother heard of his diagnosis, I was shocked that she was so accepting right off the bat. You come to learn that later on in the story that she wasn't really that accepting, neither was his mother in fact, but that is why people write about these past issues. It is a hard topic to discuss, but it needs to be talked about. It shows that no matter what the topic is, you need to push past your own prejudices, your own thoughts, and open your mind to other people's lives. Whether you open your mind to love, to listen, to observe, or to be educated, it is plain and simple that the information you obtain should be taken seriously and not judged.

Now as I continued to read the story, I wondered why the title was "The Blackwater Lightship." The only thing mentioned that resembled the title, in any way, shape or form, was the town Blackwater. Blackwater was the major town outside Cush where Dora lived. Multiple times, it was mentioned that Dora would go to town there to shop for groceries, Helen would go to the pay phone and call Hugh to check on him and their two sons, but nothing else was really mentioned, until Declan said he wanted to go for a walk on the beach. They went to Ballyconnigar, which was a drive away, so Paul and Larry went in one car and Declan, Lily and Helen drove in the other. Once they arrived at the car park, they walked over a bridge and were approaching the the beach. This is when the title is mentioned. Lily says, "There used to be two lighthouses here." Lily continued to tell everyone that the second lighthouse was taken out of commission by the Irish lights, and she asked Helen if she remembered from when she was a child. Helen said yes, and asked what the lighthouse was called. That is when Lily said, "It was called the Blackwater Lightship."She then spoke about the other lighthouse called Tuskar and how Blackwater Lightship was weaker than Tuskar. She said that apparently technology advanced and two lighthouses weren't needed, but that she always loved that there were too. Lily was quite upset because she thought that the Blackwater Lightship would always be there.

Everyone started walking along the beach, but Helen decided to stay closer to her mother for some reason. Lily continued on telling Helen that when she was younger, she used to believe that "Tuskar was a man and the Blackwater Lightship was a woman and they were both sending signals to each other and to other lighthouses, like mating calls." She said that she thought Tuskar was strong and forceful, and Blackwater was weaker, but more consistent. Blackwater would sometimes shine her light before darkness had fallen, which made her more dependable. Lily continues talking about how as a child it was funny how she would think that about two lighthouses, that they were calling out to each other, one strong and one faithful, and she then grew up and found it to not be the truth. Lily spoke about how she learned about things and life very bitterly and how she wished she could see Helen's father again. Even if he was just to walk past them on the shore, not to speak, just to watch, and see what was happening to them. Lily then toke a pause, and said they should head back. I think the reason why the lightship wasn't brought up until this point was because Helen needed to see her mother vulnerable, and true vulnerability. Not that it was something Helen wished for, of course not, I mean, that conversation along the beach made Helen uncomfortable and awkward, but it still forced her to view her mother in a different light. Whether it was a light she liked or not, it put her in a positive that her mother struggled with things that Helen didn't even consider. As you continue reading the lightship isn't really mentioned again, but it was an opener for raw emotions the rest of the book, which I valued.

Continuing on, I honestly think a lot can be learned if you read this story. It is all up to interpretation. As a reader, you are allowed your own opinions, which is one of the main reasons why I love writing these reviews. I can interpret the books I read however I want, I can bring out as much emotion as I want, or I can just simply enjoy the literature. It is all open for you personally as a reader to digest, and I find that the most thrilling when reading different types of books.

The two songs that I picked relate to this book similarly, but also have a few differences. The first one, "These Are the Days of Our Lives" by Queen is a beautiful song written by Queen drummer Roger Taylor. Taylor wrote this song during the peak of Freddie Mercury's battle with AIDs. This song was released on Freddie's 45th birthday, about 2 months before his passing. Taylor spoke that he wrote the song in a kind of melancholic mood trying to shine an optimistic light on Mercury's diagnosis. Taylor said that he wanted to shed some light on those were the days, and now these are the days of our lives, and just to always focus on the present. "Today is more important than yesterday." It is a mentality I think that everyone should have. The lyrics are saying, you can't turn back time, you can't focus on the past and what you may or may not have done, but to look forward. Look to the future and to embrace life as it comes. I think this song is showing a caring person who is trying to be there for his bandmate and friend. This song shows the parallel of Declan's two best mates, Larry and Paul, who are putting aside their differences with Declan's family, and just putting aside their own lives, to help Declan and to be there for him. I think that is what Roger was trying to portray in the song, and I think that is what the author was trying to portray in the book.

The second song I picked was "The Last Song" by Elton John. John wrote this song specifically to benefit the AIDs foundation. This song has a major parallel to this story because the song is about a father trying to come to terms with the sexuality of his gay son, and that his son is dying of the AIDs disease. In the lyrics I included at the beginning of the review, it says, "As fear grows please hold me in your arms, won't you help me if you can to shake this anger? I need your gentle hands to keep me calm." This is a beautifully heartbreaking parallel to Lily not knowing and/or accepting that Declan is gay. She claims she was never aware of it and that he isn't gay, but all Declan wants is for his mother to accept him, to love him, to hold him close, keep him safe, and be with him no matter what. The song displays that the father is not accepting towards his son, but Lily shows that she accepts Declan and tries to help him through this illness in any way she can, which is what Declan wanted all along. The ending of the song and the story are very different, but it shows the want of love from a child to a parent. No matter the hardship, that want and need will remain.

Before I end, I do want to explain the title I gave this review. The story didn't really showcase one particular person's light or dark side, but it put emphasis that we all experience light and dark in our every day life. Whether that be Declan hiding his illness from his family and then finally coming to terms with it, or Helen estranging herself from her family for 10 years, to then come back and end the story slightly more open to her family again than she thought she ever would be. Each of these characters went through highs and lows, but realize that family helps family. The title isn't just reflecting on people's struggles, but it focuses on living your life to the fullest up until the very end. Don't constantly look in the past, when you have so much to look forward to in the future, and don't take anything for granted, because not every day is promised.

All in all, I am very happy I read this story. As I stated above, this book has a different writing style that I am used to reading, but it fit with the topic, the culture and the emotion. These characters were the type of characters with clipped emotions. Not one of these characters felt the need to dive deep into unwanted emotional territory and became uncomfortable whenever they or anyone else became vulnerable., but it was that type of awkwardness and clipped speech that made this story work. I would recommend this book to anyone who wants a quick, interesting read. I hope whoever decides to pick up this book, enjoys the challenge as much as I did.