Waterboy

Author: Glynis Horning
Publisher: Bookstorm
Reviewer: Nancy Richards
​ I can’t imagine a more difficult book to write. They say nothing compares to the death of a child, but for the child’s death to have been at his own hand, is unbearable. Beyond words. Too sad for words in fact. And yet it’s through words that journalist, award-winning 

​ournalist, Glynis Horning has worked her way through trying to understand the devastating loss of her beautiful son Spencer – her Waterboy, her SuperS – his online name. Her shining son whose glow was dimmed by a pervasive depression exacerbated by a blood disorder.
The event happened in September 2019. Just over two years later Glynis has written and had published an account of circumstances around Spence’s leaving that left me, as a reader, shaking my head in disbelief and despair. But also with huge admiration and respect for the way she so transparently handled the journey. For support she drew on the strength of her treasured friends. At the same time caring for and being cared for by her husband, swimming buddy Chris and piano-playing, computer whizz second son Ewan. They are gifts these two.
But as if losing Spence was not a hole deep enough in which to fall, a series of other losses occurred around this time, all of which she includes in the book with love, sensitivity and unfailing clarity – whilst, incredibly managing to continue writing other challenging, demanding articles for work.
The incisiveness, or insightfulness, of her book is ironically due in part to the fact that Glynis is a practiced and empathetic wordsmith, writing on many subjects, notably on Mental Health. For these pieces specifically she has received many awards.
While for most of us lockdown was a time to learn new skills: baking, gardening, managing technology not least – but mostly learning to live with ourselves, for Glynis it was a time to learn to live without her darling, eldest son. As she touches on the emergence of COVID, the death of George Floyd and includes dated, what appear to be, diary entries – there’s a sense that she was writing this story as it happened. It’s certainly as fresh and raw as I suspect it may be for her, for some time. It's also a beautiful tribute to one very special young man – and as it says on the back cover ‘if this book can help one person avoid suicide, or bring new understanding to those who have lost someone, it will have achieved its goal.’