GRIEF IS LOVE

A grief expert explores how loss can gracefully coexist with life.

When Lee’s mother died of breast cancer in 2008, she was left to carry on “with a permanent hole in my heart.” That grief informs her intuitive guide on managing the lingering pain of human loss. A decade later, her research was reenergized after a miscarriage and the discovery of deep-seated anger. With calm, lucid prose, the author gently instructs readers on how to navigate their own experiences by highlighting a series of integral elements to surviving loss. This begins with self-permission to pause life, adapt, and heal while acknowledging that these feelings of bereavement may last throughout life. Lee empathetically addresses grief support, self-care, and post-traumatic intimacy and interweaves her personal story, including anecdotes about her mother’s illness and death, courtship with her husband, and trauma caused by traumatic pregnancy difficulties. With great sensitivity, the author chronicles a time in her life when she was juggling a demanding Wall Street job, a cancer charity, and a social life, all while taking care of her dying mother. Unable to cope or sleep, she began heavy self-medication, but rapid weight loss signaled a more drastic lack of control. “You are forced to exist in this tenuous space between life and death,” she admits about her mental anguish as her mother declined, “and there is often an ominous undertone to everything.” With time, understanding, and therapy, Lee began to make space for her grief and “release all of the hurt that was sitting on my chest.” As a Black woman, Lee also discusses racism, injustice, and inequality—all of which are especially palpable “in a country that lacks a real safety net”—and she shares secrets to accepting “the fluidity that love and death require.”

A humanizing exploration of coping with the life-changing tides of loss.