Book Review: "One-Beer Daisy" by Maikel L. Wise

"One-Beer Daisy" was written during the pandemic when, thirteen years after the fact, Maikel L. Wise finally had time to process the journey of grief he undertook during the last two weeks of his mother's life in 2007.

Being a self-described "mama's boy," the loss of his mother, at her relatively young age of sixty, was particularly acute for him. The book's subtitle, "Facing Death, Life, and Growing Up Along the Way," describes Wise's journey.

That it took Wise thirteen years to finally deal with that loss is not particularly surprising. There is just one universal truth about grief: it can not be short-changed or avoided. One has to complete each phase of their own journey or find, in some cases, like Wise's, that they might have to return to it for years until they do, lest they find themselves unable to go on.

Yet this book is hardly a grief journey book. Indeed, by percentage, little time is spent describing the time period of his mother's hospice care and ultimate death. Outside of the heart-warming descriptions of interactions with current friends and townspeople who smother the family in fried chicken, or the process of readying the house for ultimate sale by off-loading the contents of his mother's pack rat existence, comparatively little can be said during the active dying process as Mama Wise is sedated and less and less able to communicate.

What is evocative and does represent the majority of the book, are the memories that arise during the process of culling the household goods and interacting with neighbors, family and friends from the author's childhood who are still present and involved with the family.

Despite the challenges endemic through the alcoholism of both parents and the mostly subsistence level of living in a rural portion of Virginia, or perhaps because of it, the wealth of boyhood stories paint a Tom Sawyer-like coming of age story with a richness that has a gem-like rarity to it. That Wise survived all the malaise and time in the Navy from the early age of 17 that was on track to lead to SEAL training, the poetic and journalistic sensitivity with relational depth of emotion he is able to maintain and express is astounding.

This book is not an easy read. This is particularly true if the reader has experienced abuse, the premature loss of one or more parents or has watched them succumb during the hospice process, which makes large demands on the caretakers.

Yet the richness of poetry, prose and existential enlightenment, with appreciation for the strength of the human character as exhibited both by the author and his mother in this telling, make it more than a worthwhile investment. It is a model for personal encouragement and healing.