A very different book to those I usually read is The Rules of Inheritance by Claire Bidwell Smith (Text Publishing $37). This could be summarised I guess as a memoir of grief. Smith tells the story of how at age 14 she learned that both her parents had cancer. Subsequently her mother dies from colon cancer when the author is 18 and her father dies from prostate cancer when she is 24.
She becomes especially close to her father after her
mother dies and they have a number of adventures together including a
wonderfully described trip to Prague for her father to research what happened
to his lost aircrew in 1944 when he was a bomber pilot and his plane was shot
down.
So the book is not entirely about grief, it is also about
love and life and while parts of it are immeasurably sad the book does have a
happy ending when the author marries at age 30 and quickly has a daughter of
her own.
In
contrast with a conventional framework Smith tells her story using Elisabeth
Kubler-Ross’ five stages of grief - Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression and
Acceptance.
So the
book is divided into five parts and each begins with a quote from Kubler-Ross:
1. There is grace in denial. It is
nature’s way of letting in only as much as we can handle.
2. Anger surfaces only when you are
feeling safe enough to know you will probably survive whatever comes.
3. We will do anything not to feel
the pain of this loss. We remain in the past, trying to negotiate our way out
of the hurt.
4. Invite your depression to pull up
a chair with you in front of the fire, and sit with it, without looking for a
way to escape....When you allow yourself to experience depression, it will
leave you as soon as it has served its purpose in your loss.
5. In a strange way, as we move
through grief, healing brings us closer to the person we loved. A new
relationship begins. We learn to live with the loved one we lost.
Unsurprisingly
the author is now a grief counsellor at a hospice in California. I believe
anyone working in this field would find the book of help. Not sure where she
got her title as there is nothing about inheritance in a legal sense but it may
be that she is just referring to the grief she inherited.
Some
readers might also be reminded of a book published in 2000, A
Heartbreaking Work of Staggering genius where Dave Eggers chronicled
his stewardship of his younger brother following the death from cancer of his
parents.
Footnote:
My review was first published in the Herald on Sunday, Easter Sunday - 8 April, 2012
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