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Books to bring along when navigating loss

There it was on my computer screen. A billboard for sadness. For anyone else it was just the “last opened date” on a story draft, this very story in fact, but for me it was a relic from the “before” time. Before the doctors told us my father’s body was shutting down. Before we moved him to hospice care. Before he died.

Like most anyone who’s gotten to midlife and beyond, I’ve experienced loss. A cherished friend who died young, beloved grandparents, trusted colleagues, dear family friends, but this one—the loss of a parent—was different. It hit like a lifecycle event of sorts. One that has me organizing my life into before and after that last Sunday in April and has changed me in ways I’m still figuring out. 

Books, reading, and the written word have always comforted me. The very reason I began this piece in the “before” time. But sitting here in active and early grief reminds me of the importance of noting that both nothing and everything helps. Both can be true at the same time. 

Grief is a journey, a maze, a jumble. It’s isolating and highly personal. It comes in waves and tsunamis and whispers. It throws tantrums. So as I wrestle with my new reality, I’ve put together this list of books, all of which dance with themes of loss for when you feel able or compelled to reach for them as you navigate forward. I plan on doing the same.

In the Company of Others: Memoir and Nonfiction

During a profoundly lonely time, engaging with other people’s stories of loss often reminds you that you’re not alone. Perhaps that’s in part because the writing itself often helped contribute to the author’s own healing process, as was the case with Melissa Gould, a PROVOKED contributing writer and author of Widowish, which she wrote after her young husband’s death.

“Writing about my grief became the most healing thing for me,” said Gould, a fiction and screenwriter who joined a writing group about nine months after she became a widow at the age of 46. “I just started writing these essays. It was pouring out of me like a faucet broke. There was no stopping me … I wrote if somebody looked at me funny, if somebody wanted to give me a hug, if somebody dropped off flowers, if somebody wanted to take me to dinner. There was an essay in every detail of my life suddenly and they all centered around my grief.”

Here are a few memoir and nonfiction suggestions, including Gould’s, to reach for when you want to feel less alone.

Widowish: A Memoir

 by Melissa Gould

It’s all in here. Heartbreak, humor, honesty. Even The Real Housewives make an appearance in Widowish, the result of the writing that wouldn’t shut off after the author suddenly became a young widow.

Memorial Days: A Memoir

by Geraldine Brooks

Memorial Days begins on Memorial Day 2019 when Pulitzer Prize-winning author Brooks gets the dreaded call. Her seemingly healthy 60-year-old husband of more than 30 years had died unexpectedly while walking down the sidewalk in a quiet Washington, DC, neighborhood. The book toggles between her rush to get from Martha’s Vineyard to DC, and her time three years later on a remote island between Tasmania and mainland Australia where she goes to process her stunning loss.

Renegade Grief: A Guide to the Wild Ride of Life after Loss

by Carla Fernandez

A guidebook and you-are-not-alone-although-it-sure-as-hell-can-feel-like-like-it book for the long and lonely time after the cards, casseroles, and condolence calls stop. Penned after her own father’s death by the co-founder of The Dinner Party, an organization that brings young adults who have experienced loss together for shared meals.

Read Fernandez’s PROVOKED interview here where she calls grief a “radical act.”

Small but Mighty: Poetry and Short Prose

Grief can rob the attention span and fog the brain, making the thought of opening a book enough to send you back under the covers. Poetry might be the answer. Often slim in size yet deep in emotion, poetry chapbooks and collections allow you to dip in and out easily and can deliver a whole meal in just a page or two.

Just as with memoirists, the poet often is drawn to the page to make sense of a profound loss. For Debbie Feit, author of the forthcoming chapbook The Power of the Plastic Fork: A Daughter’s Highly Unorthodox Kaddish, that was the case—and a surprise. “After my dad died, I wasn’t sleeping a lot,” said Feit, who’s been a professional writer her whole life but had never really written poetry. “I started buying poetry books and signing up for poetry classes. I wasn’t consciously thinking ‘Oh, my dad died, maybe I should try writing poetry.’ But that’s what wound up happening.”

Here are a few volumes, including Feit’s, to keep near when you crave poetic comfort.

The Power of the Plastic Fork: A Daughter’s Highly Unorthodox Kaddish

by Debbie Feit

Rather than say Kaddish, the traditional Jewish prayer recited every day at synagogue for 11 months following the death of a parent, Feit found herself writing this touching, bittersweet, and at times even whimsical collection of poems. Her own personal Kaddish for her father.

You Better Be Lightning

by Andrea Gibson

“Instead of Depression” on page 32 reads almost like a mantra or a prayer. As do the rest of the offerings in this gem of a book. On July 14, Gibson died of ovarian cancer, casting a different spell on these writings which engage with the themes of loss, mortality, and love. Other titles from Gibson to keep close include Take Me With You.

Love, Loss, and What I Wore

By Ilene Beckerman

A Brownies uniform, that slinky dress, a pair of bright blue mittens knitted by her mother. This easy to read and easy to love volume tells author-illustrator Beckerman’s life story through clothes, all the while touching on how love and loss crisscross. Beckerman published the bestselling book at 60. It was her publishing debut. 

Reach for the Familiar

There’s often comfort in the familiar. As you find the books that speak to you, be sure to also spend time with your favorites; the ones that make your shoulders relax or transport you away. For me it’s been The Kingdom of Ordinary Time by Marie Howe and my well-loved hardback copy of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum (similar to this one: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz 100th Anniversary Edition  that my dad brought home for me long ago the week I was home from school with the flu).

“Sometimes just reading or listening to something you’ve experienced before is comforting because you know what’s going to happen,” shared Melissa T. Shultz, who wrote this piece about her friend’s death for PROVOKED—and whose new children’s book, What Will I Do if I Miss You?: A Picture Book for Separation Anxiety, came out in August.

Take a Cue From the Page

As you make way through your own grief and discover the books that reach out to you, think about what it might be like to grapple your own feelings and stories through the written word. How would it feel to trust that the page can hold you just as it holds the words when you need them most? Consider using the journeys of others to inspire you to capture your own—to write just for you. 

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