What We Wish Were True: Reflections of Nurturing Life and Facing Death by Tallu Schuyler Quinn
As a Nashville resident for the past five years, I’ve come to see how this city is “the biggest small town” as it is often called. There are old families with deep roots and wide circles of connection here and the author of “What We Wish Were True,” Tallu Schuyler Quinn is a part of one of these historic Nashville families. Quinn, a minister, non-profit leader, food activist and mother is a beloved Nashville public figure who cast a wide net with her grassroots work of bringing food equity to the greater Nashville community. When she was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer in her early 40s, her family, friends, church community, networks and Nashville-at-large gathered around this inspirational leader and helped walk her home.
“What We Wish Were True” is a collection of essays largely written as blog posts in the 18 months between Quinn’s diagnosis and her death, in February of 2022. In these refections, Quinn marries the story of how she came to be and her touching day-to-day process of surrendering to death. These short essays (often only a page or two) contemplate everything from vocation to ministry to her worries of leaving her young children behind to what she hopes death will be like. This is not a memoir to quickly flip through, if Quinn’s charismatic voice doesn’t make you feel as if you are hearing the whispers of a dear friend, the profound words of wisdom that she graces us with will touch your spirit deeply.
Staggered throughout the book are paintings that Quinn completed with her children as she journeyed through terminal brain cancer, illustrating the chaos and fragmentation that crippled her voice as she undertook writing these last words. Her words are truly a gift, the offering a young mother to her children, that tell the story of who she is, what she believes in and how she hoped to touch the world, one handmade meal at a time. It is also a gift to her community, as she modeled how to lead into death with authenticity and integrity. Quinn lived a handmade life and believed in the sanctity of the Earth and her people and even in death, she modeled how to die with as little waste and damage to her beloved community as possible. Quinn was laid to rest on a bed of flowers in a green burial at the land conservation, Larkspur, in her beloved Nashville. Even in death, Quinn advocated bringing integrity and intention to the impact we make and the life we model to others. Her legacy, her words, her six degrees of separation for all who reside in her hometown, are beautifully honored in the book.
