Maud Newton's wonderful essay "On grief--and dying without finishing your book."
When your spouse’s parent dies, grieving is complicated. There is the grief you feel for yourself, for the loss of a person you (if you’re lucky) loved, and there is the grief you feel at seeing the person closest to you dealing with a nearly unfathomable loss. At times the sorrow is literally almost suffocating. These are clichés, but they are also realities, as is the fact that the passing of someone important to you causes you to think about the way you’re spending your own life.
I wish I could write as eloquently on this subject. But reading good writing always helps and since I've decided to work on this zine, I need all the help I can get.
Have we talked about doing a project? Well, now is the time.
1 comment:
Sounds weird to say "I'm looking forward to your zine on grief!" but there it is. Is there anything harder to write about?
When my dad died a friend who had recently lost her dad said, isn't it weird, you can divide up the world into people who have had someone they love die, and people who haven't. And it's like the first group shares a terrible secret. That it's even worse than you imagine.
A year later one of my co-workers joined the first group. I wrote her a long letter, eschewing all the lame things well-meaning people say, acknowledging that grief sucks and goes on and on saying I'd be willing to talk if she needed to. She never spoke to me again. I realized I'd broken a code. Anyway I think what you're working on is important and brave.
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