'Cliches saved my life'

Today I'm sharing a story from writer Emily Henderson, who writes about the death of her 20-month-old son.

Hi Friends,

I have a special treat for you. It’s a piece written by

Emily Henderson

, a beautiful and smart writer I met in one of my writing classes.

Like me, Emily is working on her memoir. It’s about her 20-month-old son, who passed away from brain cancer.

I gravitated to Emily’s story because of her voice and poetic prose. I can picture what that time in her life was like and how she pulled herself out of the darkness.

When I first joined the writing class where I met Emily, she was in her third trimester of pregnancy. There was something powerful about listening to her chapters about the death of one child while another was soon to be born. I don’t want to get too meta, but to me, it made her writing all the more compelling. 

Quick memoir recommendation

Before we jump into Emily’s story, I had to share a phenomenal memoir, “A Heart That Works.” It’s written by “Catastrophe” actor and writer Rob Delaney. Like Emily, Delaney experienced the death of his son Henry from brain cancer when he was 2 ½. 

I finished it in a day, and oh my god… Delaney’s story made my heart hurt. But it also made me laugh and giggle uncontrollably. I absolutely loved it.

After reading, it reminded me so much of Emily’s story I contacted her and asked if she had heard about “A Heart That Works.” She said yes—that it was on her list, but she hadn’t read it yet.

OK, back to Emily’s essay, it’s called “Cliches.” 

[See my other memoir recommendations about friendship and death. Here’s one I wrote about my favorite books you should be reading now.]

Cliches, by Emily Henderson

They say cliches are corny, predictable, and overused, but what if I told you cliches saved my life?

I've been collecting cliches for 15 years, sitting in uncomfortable chairs in church basements with "people who normally would not mix." See, even that's a cliche, but unless you are a friend of Bill W., it will fly high above your head.

In my writing, I often use a cliche as filler to capture an idea in a first draft. Then, later, I go back and replace it with more original and specific language. My teacher tells me, “I’ve heard this before,” and “You can do better,” when I use phrases like "heart racing," "end of the world," or "Suddenly, things that happened to other people were happening to me."

In July of 2019, my 17-month-old son was diagnosed with brain cancer, and by November, he was gone. In the car on the way home from the hospital, I thought of a man I knew from a morning meeting I liked, soft-spoken and hard of hearing from years as a commercial fisherman. A few years earlier, his son died. He shook as he shared his story with a room full of people.  

I remember thinking at the time that if there ever was a reason to drink…. 

But he kept coming back, and I kept thinking, “If that guy’s still here…”

One day he shared about another member of our club and how she lost a son and how she didn’t have to drink, and how that helped him through his hardest days, and now I’m driving in a car in the most unnatural of circumstances trying to bring to mind the kind, watery-eyes of an old fisherman to remind me that I don’t have to drink either.

I pulled out my collection of simple phrases like, "One day at a time," “Easy does it,” and "Wisdom to know the difference." I repeated them in my head like a metronome. What if the only thing that kept me safe on that drive was because "God was doing for me that which I could not do for myself."

What if when I felt like I might not survive the death of my son, that the pain might be too great, I remembered that "feelings are not facts" and "this too shall pass," even if I don't really believe it just yet, what if I could "fake it until I make it?"

What if my pocket full of cliches were the mattress I fell on after falling off a cliff, crashing through a brick wall, and then a glass window? 

I'm still just as bruised and broken, but because of my cliches, the alcoholic who is normally doing push-ups in the parking lot waiting for me to slip is nowhere to be found. Scared off by words like, “When life hands you lemons..." You know the rest.

About Emily

Emily is a freelance writer living with her family in Santa Barbara, CA. When she's not running in the foothills behind her house, she's planning the full gut and remodel of her 1950s ranch-style home. Currently, she is writing a memoir about running every street in Santa Barbara to process the loss of her 20-month-old son to brain cancer. 

You can find Emily on Substack. Subscribe to The Bittersweet Weekly, it’s for a community for readers searching for a richer perspective on the bittersweet moments that make up modern life.

I’m still looking for more writers to collaborate with on Substack. If you have a story to share, reach out to me, I’d love to hear from you!