Bright Shining

July 29, 2024
Grace is hiding in plain sight, writes Baird (Phosphorescence) in this effervescent outing. While undergoing cancer treatment during the pandemic, Baird embarked on a search for the phenomenon—which she describes as a fleeting, hard-to-define instance of “undeserved” beauty, kindness, or clarity—and found it in unexpected places: swimming with whale sharks in Australia, the small kindnesses of nurses at treatment appointments, and seeing a luminous pink moon the night after her mother died, which put the author in mind of her mother’s “presence... gentle and strong.” Taking a broader perspective on grace, Baird describes how Australian First Nations members invited Australians to join a “makarrata”—a “coming together after a struggle”—and how some grieving families forgive their loved one’s killers despite the almost unimaginable pain involved (Danny Abdallah, whose three kids were killed by a drunk driver in 2020, notes that “forgiveness is not a single action... it has been more than two years and I must choose to forgive myself and the driver every day—to not retreat into hatred”). Baird’s ability to find wonder in the everyday is especially poignant, as when she considers the donor who made a blood transfusion she received after a surgery possible: “When I came to, I felt stronger, and I wondered whose blood it was that was now racing through my veins, injecting me with life.” Even cynics will be moved.