The Land of the Everlasting Sky: Author Spotlight with Jill D. Swenson
Grief can take us to unexpected places.
For author Jill D. Swenson, that journey led to her book The Land of Everlasting Sky: A Memoir of Loss and Legacy on Lake of the Woods (She Writes Press), out on June 2 and available for order from booksellers everywhere. A former Ithaca College professor, Jill lost her husband suddenly in 2009. A friend suggested she join Hospicare's Sudden Loss Support group, led by Hospicare's bereavement program manager at the time, Donna George.
"I didn't die, right? How is Hospicare relevant to me?" Jill laughed, recalling that conversation. "Now, I feel a deep connection that's lasted many years and over many miles. There's a community there. There's support there."
When faced with loss, many of us look for ways to connect with our roots. Some people leaf through old photo albums or sign up for Ancestry.com. Jill found the connection she sought in the stories of her past on the shores of Lake of the Woods, in the small Minnesota town where her mother grew up.
From Bereavement to a Book
Five years after her husband's death, Jill's mother was facing the end of her own life. Jill made the drive from Ithaca to Minnesota to be with her family. After the funeral, she traveled further north to Warroad.
What began as a visit to learn more about her own family history turned into something much larger. Jill discovered that descendants of Kakaygeesick, an Ojibwe spiritual leader she had met as a child, had been removed from their land to make way for a new casino. She began researching, talking at length with Kakaygeesick's great-grandson, and unearthing decades of policy and history she had never been taught in school.
“I didn't set out to write a book when I went up there and began exploring my own family history,” she shared. “But I taught journalism at Ithaca College; I could smell a story coming.”
The longer she stayed with it, the more she realized her own family's story and Kakaygeesick's weren’t as separate as they had first appeared. Two families, one Indigenous and one immigrant, shaped by the same land and the same century of American history.
She also discovered that her two losses, five years apart, were not as separate as they had seemed.
"My grief around my husband was transformed when I was dealing with my grief for my mother. I could see things that I hadn't seen before that remained unprocessed about my relationship with him," Jill said.
Writing Into the Past
That layered kind of grief is at the heart of the book.
"You think you're over it, right? And that you're ready to write," Jill said. "But in rewriting and rethinking all of those things, there were a number of epiphanies. When you have enough time and distance from something, you can look at it with fresh eyes."
Writing, she said, became a form of healing. Many of the people who find their way to Hospicare's bereavement program have experienced something similar, thanks to the variety of bereavement activities offered that rely on art as a way to process and express the emotions that come after a loss.
For Jill, the writing kept returning her to the same insight, in both her personal life and her research.
"If you want to move forward in life, you have to reckon with the past," she said. "You can't just bury it, no matter how long ago it happened, no matter how tragic or unexpected even it was."
She credits Elaine Mansfield, the Ithaca writer and prior longtime Hospicare volunteer, with helping her see this.
"She really helped me see that leaning into grief was not going to tumble me down a spiral," Jill said. "It was the first step to moving forward."
The Need for Awareness
A few years ago, Jill faced another loss. Her aunt passed away, and Jill realized her cousins did not know about hospice care. Her aunt never made it into hospice.
"It kind of broke my heart," Jill said. “They just didn’t know about the resources.” But she also felt more equipped to walk her family through what came after, because she had been through it herself.
"I want people to know about Hospicare, because I don't think they get enough credit for all the kinds of things they do."
Coming Home
The Land of Everlasting Sky: A Memoir of Loss and Legacy on Lake of the Woods comes out on June 2 and will be available to order from local booksellers, including Buffalo Street Books in Ithaca and Protagonist Books & Coffee in Dryden.
You can also meet Jill and hear her speak about the book at Buffalo Street Books in Ithaca from 4-5 PM on July 30th, as part of a conversation with local author and teacher Eleanor Hendserson.
She is already looking forward to the trip. Old friends, the Trumansburg Farmers Market, and a hike out to Taughannock Falls are all on her list.
"It feels like coming home," she said.