Product Description

Now I find myself in late August, with the nights cool and the crickets thick in the fields. Already the first blighted leaves glow scarlet on the red maples. It’s a season of fullness and sweet longings made sweeter now by the fact that I can’t be sure I’ll see this time of the year again....
— from Learning to Fall

Philip Simmons was just thirty-five years old in 1993 when he learned that he had ALS, or Lou Gehrig’s disease, and was told he had less than five years to live. As a young husband and father, and at the start of a promising literary career, he suddenly had to learn the art of dying. Nine years later, he has succeeded, against the odds, in learning the art of living.

Now, in this surprisingly joyous and spirit-renewing book, he chronicles his search for peace and his deepening relationship with the mystery of everyday life.

Set amid the rugged New Hampshire mountains he once climbed, and filled with the bustle of family life against the quiet progression of illness, Learning to Fall illuminates the journey we all must take — “the work of learning to live richly in the face of loss.”

From our first faltering steps, Simmons says, we may fall into disappointment or grief, fall into or out of love, fall from youth or health. And though we have little choice as to the timing or means of our descent, we may, as he affirms, “fall with grace, to grace.”

With humor, hard-earned wisdom and a keen eye for life’s lessons — whether drawn from great poetry or visits to the town dump — Simmons shares his discovery that even at times of great sorrow we may find profound freedom. And by sharing the wonder of his daily life, he offers us the gift of connecting more deeply and joyously with our own.


From the Hardcover edition.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #70642 in Books
• Published on: 2003-04-29
• Released on: 2003-04-29
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 176 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Living fully in the face of a debilitating fatal illness is the challenge Simmons, then an associate professor of English at Lake Forest College in Illinois, faced when he was told in 1993 he had ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease) and had less than five years to live. As his illness progressed, a wheelchair-bound Simmons moved with his wife and two children to southern New Hampshire, near the rugged mountains he once had climbed. Writing in his cabin in view of an old dump, Simmons describes the wonders of nature remembered and still visible from his abode. He tells of his search for life's meaning in a variety of religious and secular texts, among them the story of Jesus, the philosophy of Zen, Sufi and Buddhist masters, medieval Christian mystics, Emerson's essays and the poetry of Yeats. In a wry disclaimer, Simmons notes that learning to live richly in the face of loss is a highly individual undertaking, and adds, "I'm not in the business of issuing directives, offering tips, imposing lists of spiritual dos and don'ts, or providing neat, comforting formulas." Indeed, his little book of thoughtful essays offers no easy solutions to dealing with suffering and sorrow, but it does chronicle how the experience of living at the edge can become an extraordinary connection to the eternal. Agent, Bob Markel. (Jan. 9)Forecast: Few books on loss and death manage to break out to a mass audience, but Bantam's promised publicity and advertising campaign may help this well-written chronicle of a spiritual journey make a strong showing in the marketplace. Xlibris published it last year to much acclaim.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Stricken with Lou Gehrig's disease (ALS) at age 35, Simmons left his position as a professor of English to return to his native New Hampshire. The author of numerous articles and one previous book, he has crafted essays out of his reflections, understanding, and observations of everyday rural life. Interwoven throughout is Simmons's theme of letting go as a necessary means of embracing life. With a knack for blending the esoteric and the mundane, Simmons presents his own insight into the well-known messages of Western and Eastern spiritual masters, such as Rumi, the Dalai Lama, Thomas Merton, Thich Nhat Hahn, and Meister Eckhart. As a family man with a degenerative disease, he writes with a marvelous understanding of acceptance, always knowing that tomorrow you still have to do the laundry. Eschewing the saccharine found in other works of this kind, these engaging essays are recommended for public libraries. Andy Wickens, King Cty. P.L., WA

Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
*Starred Review* Sometimes it takes a tragedy to make us realize how much we have and how much we have lost. In 1993 Simmons, then 35, was told that he had ALS, or Lou Gehrig's disease. He was shaken but took it in stride. "Life, after all," he wryly observes, "is a terminal condition." Now he is in the delicate position of having to master the art of living and the art of dying. He has succeeded admirably so far by accepting failure and embracing human imperfection. Moreover, he is a wonderful writer. In the dozen essays of this slim volume, which are reflections on the secret of living well despite confronting seemingly insurmountable obstacles, he teaches not only how to fall with grace, but how to fall to grace, often with ecumenical overtones. He doesn't recite familiar, shallow platitudes or list any spiritual do's and don'ts. Instead he shows how to be willing to let go of the things that one finds most precious. In effect, his faith is a mysticism of everyday life: he seeks eternity wherever he can find it. One's life may be fleeting, he reminds us, but we are all part of a greater mystery. Full of many moments of quiet grace and subtle insight, Learning to Fall may become a spiritual classic--deservedly. June Sawyers
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Customer Reviews

The best book ever!
This is about the 7th copy of this book that I have purchased. I keep giving them away because the message is so poignant. It is a wonderful story of courage and acceptance in the face of death at too young an age. But - the story is not sad - the author finds the joys in life and the ability to face each day with a positive outlook.

A Keeper
I have read this book once a year at the end of winter since its publication because reading it is a great way to herald in the spring given its life-affirming message. As a disabled person, I find it particularly helpful, but I first started reading it a few years before I was disabled. I purchase at least one copy a year because I not only loan it out, I give it away. Such a gift it is.

I also want to say to the people who are disappointed that Simmons doesn't let us into his pathos and pain: perhaps Simmons did not spend a very long time in pathos and pain, let alone want to write about it (living it may have been enough for him). I am disabled and my disability has left me with little social contact (in fact even my spouse left me because of my disability), and yet I am a happy person. It's not that I don't accept or honor my grief, but I spend more time loving life back rather than standing in the crashing waves shaking my fist at God. I suspect this was Simmons way as well.

No doubt he could have written that other book and even made us laugh at his pain, but that was not the focus of his life. Research shows that happy people do not necessarily have more happy experiences--they just focus on those experiences more and are grateful just for the chance to be alive no matter the suffering. That's a lesson in and of itself.

A Masterpiece
Just a quick note to add my voice to others who love this book by the late Philip Simmons. As moving and beautiful and wise as any creative nonfiction ever written. As a professor of writing, I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn more about life (and the death that makes life possible).