THE SLOW ROAD NORTH

A Northern Ireland–based journalist and nonfiction writer reflects on the loss and grief that changed her life.

When New York City native Schaap, author of Drinking With Men, went to read a favorite poem to her cancer-stricken husband, Frank, on Valentine’s Day 2010, she did not know it would be the last time she would see him alive. The day afterward, he passed away while she was temporarily absent from his side. Flattened by grief and guilt, she ran away from the pain, visiting a city, Belfast, in a country she had loved during her student days in Dublin. From that point on, Northern Ireland—its rugged beauty, tortured but fascinating history, and quirky inhabitants—became her beacon of hope as she navigated new widowhood and more wounding deaths. Several trips to Ireland later and nearly a decade after Frank’s death, Schaap took a chance on the impractical-seeming dream of pursuing a creative writing master’s degree in Belfast. Immediately, her life opened her to new vistas: first, graduate school, and then pandemic lockdown with a sculptor whom she had met on her first trip to Belfast and eventually married. Though Jewish and a foreigner, the author quickly found her place in a world that surprised her with its openness and its willingness to move past a history of sectarian violence. Most unexpectedly of all, though, was the solace and profound understanding of grief she gained by interacting with people willing to share their own stories of loss. Death was never fair in what it took away; however, to recall with gratitude what was lost could ease suffering and even touch wellsprings of the deepest joy. As Schaap writes, “To love is to remember; to remember is to keep loving.”

A poignant and moving memoir featuring a well-rendered story of pain and redemption.