Lost Canyon s title has a double meaning, referring both to a favorite place the author visited as a child and to his son, Canyon, who died. The double meaning provides a beautiful metaphor about treasuring the past and trying to go home again, while having to live in the present, and move forward with life. Fleming chronicles his journey through grief, acknowledging that time heals, but also that his son will always be a presence in his life and what we choose to focus on matters. One might say that the art of living well is really the art of letting go with grace. Life is loss. We lose jobs. We lose lovers. Some of us lose children. And some of us even lose ourselves. In the lonely aftermath of loss, it s easy to lose sight of the beauty we are mourning. Like a child who s been crying for so long that he eventually forgets why he s crying, we lose sight of what we re missing. We stay focused only on the void left behind. Like staring at the spaces between the stars, rather than on the stars themselves, we see only darkness and let the lovely lumens twinkle in vain.
