The Year of Magical Thinking,
by Joan Didion
Her husband's death while their daughter was in the hospital
in a coma started a year of disorientation for the author, who shares it with
us in this enlightening and moving story. As a person accustomed to being able
to manage all crises/problems, she found herself in a situation where "I had
no answers. I had no prognosis. I did not know how this had happened." She
gave away her husband's clothes, but saved a pair of shoes because he would
need them when he came home. Later she realized that it took four months for
her to move from grieving to mourning. "Grief turns out to be a place none of
us know until we reach it." "Nor can we know ahead of the fact...the unending
absence that follows, the void, the very opposite of meaning, the relentless
succession of moments during which we will confront the experience of
meaninglessness itself."
-Nancy
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