By Dorian Martin, I Start Wondering Founder
It usually isn’t uppermost on most of our minds, but marrow has long been a part of human history.
At its most elemental, marrow—a substance found at the core of bones—has been consumed by humans for at least 400,000 years. You’ve probably heard about your ancestors (or characters in a novel set in the 1800s) sucking the marrow from the roast bones at the end of a feast because it was considered a delicacy. Recently, marrow has regained popularity in trendy upper-class restaurants and as bone broth.
We also have learned that marrow’s appeal isn’t just its taste. This substance offers substantial health benefits: organizing blood cell production, housing stem cells, and maintaining bone strength and skin tissue.
Marrow also has symbolic value in our culture. Many authors have metaphorically invoked marrow when describing self-actualization. Writer D.H. Lawrence equated marrow’s role in bones to the importance of humility in life, Henry David Thoreau wanted to suck the marrow out of life, and Cherie Dimaline wrote a well-regarded coming-of-age novel, The Marrow Thieves*, exploring the transition from adolescence to adulthood. Additionally, in her masterwork, Women Who Run with Wolves*, Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes, a poet, psychoanalyst, and post-traumatic specialist, describes Baba Yaga, a character from Slavic folktales, as “the marrow of the instinctive and integrated psyche.”
Bone marrow also has a prominent place in religion and spirituality. For example, the Bible regularly references marrow in its passages while Buddhism equates marrow with human’s vital essence that reflects our core inner attributes.
Cutting to the Bone
It's the regenerative power of marrow--both real and symbolic--that is at the heart of Elizabeth Lesser’s book, Marrow: Love, Loss and What Matters Most*. The book delves into Elizabeth’s life in relation to her younger sister, Maggie, who battled lymphoma for over a decade.
Marrow offers a fascinating look at the sisters’ family dynamics, and you begin to realize that even though there were some commonalities in how the two were raised, their perspectives on their upbringing and place in the family differed significantly. Maggie was the second youngest child, a Renaissance woman, who opted to walk to the beat of her own drummer in organizing her life. In comparison, Elizabeth, who is the family’s second oldest child, tended to embrace a leadership role.
Yet like most siblings, Elizabeth described her sister in a different light. “In many ways, Maggie and I were very different: I am a head-in the-clouds writer; Maggie had her feet on the ground,” Elizabeth wrote in a column for Time Magazine.
Like many siblings, the sisters were not particularly close when they reached adulthood. Their different experiences, viewpoints, choices and life paths took Elizabeth and Maggie in opposite directions as they aged. Elizabeth initially was a midwife and childbirth educator before becoming the cofounder of the Omega Institute and eventually an author. In comparison, Maggie was a nurse practitioner in rural Vermont as well as an artist, beekeeper and maple syrup producer.
Not surprisingly, these different life journeys meant that Maggie and Elizabeth stepped on each other’s proverbial toes and pushed emotional buttons. As a result, they created some half-true stories about each other and developed relational armor, keeping each other at arm’s length.
Adding to the chasm was Elizabeth’s commitment to doing her own inner work to develop a relationship with her soul, which is the quiet and timeless voice in each person that is often drowned out by the ego. “I too argued with my soul for a long time before I came to know it as my wisest self, my compass that would direct me to a different kind of safety, an inner stability that far surpassed anything the noise in my head could imagine,” Elizabeth said. “Getting quiet enough to hear the voice of the soul became my practice. Learning to distinguish what was soul from what was dread, or guilt, or pride—that became my purpose. To dig for the soul, and then to gather the courage to put it in charge of my life.”
Redefining Transplant
All of this comes into the forefront when Maggie was diagnosed with cancer. After initially responding well to treatments and becoming cancer-free for a period of time, her lymphoma returned. The doctors told her that she had only one remaining option: a bone marrow transplant--and Elizabeth proved to be a 100% match.
After ruminating on the decision, Maggie decided to go forward with the operation and Elizabeth agreed to be the donor. The pair began to talk about the procedure and the outcome, playfully naming it “Maggie-Liz.”
But Elizabeth also realized that there was something more at stake: their relationship. The challenge was putting down their respective weapons and taking off their emotional armor. “I know now that Maggie feared losing parts of herself in my presence, too,” Elizabeth wrote. “That she secretly admired me—my courage to examine my life, to say what I wanted, and to stand up to the powers that be at work, at home, in the world. I didn’t know then that being around me both inspired and threatened her.”
As a result, the sisters committed to a different kind of transplant, working together to meld their hearts and souls. “It takes courage to dig for the soul with another person,” Elizabeth wrote. “I’ve done most of my soul-searching on my own—on the scheduled islands of meditation and therapy. It’s less challenging to examine myself—warts and all—in the privacy of my own head, or in a room with a therapist who keeps all confidences. It always surprises me how hard it is to lay bare my most vulnerable authenticity to my husband, with whom I have lived for almost thirty years, or with my close friends and colleagues.”
Maggie’s and Elizabeth’s “soul marrow transplant” involved attending therapy together, committing to regular communication, sitting with emerging triggers, having the courage to ask questions, and taking time for long conversations that included open and heartfelt sharing. As a result, the sisters began to slowly find common ground in the heat of Maggie’s health battle.
But, interestingly, Elizabeth ended up feeling attached to her marrow cells’ vitality in the wake of the bone marrow transplant, even going as far as mentally cheering her cells on as they entered into and worked in her sister’s body. In doing so, Elizabeth created an unusual co-dependency where she felt that she was responsible for her sister’s healing. That proved especially challenging when Maggie’s health took a downturn, eventually leading to her death.
Elizabeth is candid in describing her feelings about all of this throughout the book, trying to be as thoughtful, honest and forthright as she was with her sister during this time. And while Elizabeth serves as the book’s main author, she includes Maggie’s journal notes in appropriate places. This way, you get a chance to see the two sisters’ various perspectives and a peek into their relationship—and the slow closing of their emotional gaps as their mindful “soul marrow transplant" takes.
And while the bone marrow transplant didn’t lead to the hoped-for outcome, the “soul marrow transplant" did. Recounting what she’ll remember of her year living as Maggie-Liz, Elizabeth wrote, “Love. Big love. So big that my heart will never shrink back to its original size.”
Soulful Lessons
This book opened a wealth of considerations in how to strengthen all relationships, not just individuals who are dying. That alone makes this book worthwhile to take to heart in our polarized society.
Moving forward, I feel like the messages in this book are invaluable in inviting more honest and soulful relationships. To do so, however, isn’t always easy or convenient. It involves stepping out of the ego’s need to be right (or loud), setting aside preconceived notions, listening more deeply, hearing and accepting another’s viewpoint which may—and probably will--differ drastically, and ultimately finding a win-win solution.
This book also offers a path forward for caregivers. In hindsight, I could have used this book’s lessons with my elderly father, with whom I had a fractured relationship. The ideas and examples that the sisters shared would have helped me think about and understand the various factors that influenced his life and informed his perspective, thus giving me understanding, empathy and the ability to offer grace during testy interactions.
And as Elizabeth articulately depicts, we do start to feel a more pressing need to create more heartfelt relationships as we age, and the clock starts ticking toward final goodbyes. Whether that’s a parent, a sibling, a friend, a co-worker or ourselves, we all face crossing into the great unknown after death. This book is a call to make the most of a difficult situation by putting the relationships with each other at the heart, soul, and marrow of what is happening in this chapter of life.
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PS. Another book that I recommend that helps us build honest and soulful relationships is The Presence Process* by Michael Brown, which is featured in a podcast that Jenni de Jong and I did in 2024.
*All purchases through Bookshop benefit an independent bookstore. Proceeds from the purchase of these books will be used to support I Start Wondering's programming for women who have reached mid-life and beyond.
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