“Memorial Days” by Geraldine Brooks

Don't let this immediately put you off, but Memorial Days is a grief memoir. Until his untimely death in 2019, Geraldine Brooks was married to Tony Horwitz, a Pulitzer prize-winning journalist and author (sounds like he was quite famous, though I'd never heard of him--not that there's any significance to that). What with the bureaucracy of death, and her own career, not to mention a global pandemic, Brooks never found the time to truly grieve her loss until she managed to escape to a remote island off the coast of Tasmania in 2023 to feel her feelings and write a book about it. 

The result is beautifully crafted and quietly heartbreaking. Brooks delves into her memory of Tony's death and its aftermath, and interleaves this with her experience on Flinders Island. The story is bittersweet and universally relatable (at least for anyone who is in a relationship that they want to be in). As I read I couldn't help but put my feet in Brooks' shoes and feel her grief right along with her, as I imagined and dreaded going through the same kind of loss in my life. In fact, I assumed that this is what everyone always does when confronted with death, so I was surprised to read in this book that three months before Tony died, his childhood friend had died suddenly at age 60. At that time, Brooks felt sympathy for the man's family but didn’t even think about what it would be like if the same thing happened to Tony . . . until it did. 

Another thing that stood out to me was that Tony used to scribble his thoughts all over the pages of the books he read. Brooks states, “I am glad of this now. If I pick up one of his books that I haven’t yet read, I can know what he thought of it.” I tend not to write in my books (well, other than cookbooks!) but this book blog fulfills that same purpose. My main reason for this blog is to keep track of what I've read and what I thought about it; but it is also a gift to you, Sam.

What I want to remember most from Memorial Days is the advice. Not because it's the most poignant or emotional part of the book, but because death is a fact of life and though no one ever wants to think about it, someday I will be glad to have this guidance. 

• First, the incredibly practical, and something that can and should be done as soon as possible: Jot down all the tasks you do to keep the household afloat. Brooks suggests creating a document called Your Life: How It Works and periodically updating it. 
• Very soon after Tony's death, a friend approached her with what he described as advice that couldn’t wait. There were three things:

1. Make it safe for others to talk about the loved one you have lost by talking about them first. 2. Don’t come home to a silent house; leave the radio on. 

Brooks couldn’t remember the third thing! Which is going to drive me crazy. What if it was the most important thing?? (I try to tell myself if that were the case she would have remembered it, but that's not working for me.)

• Make more time for the beauty. I don't think this is necessarily something that would be helpful right away, but it's what Brooks did on Flinders Island more than three years later.
• Accept the fact that the future you had expected is gone and there is no getting it back; make the life you do have as vivid and consequential as you can. 

I feel like Sam and I already do a good job of squeezing all the juice out of life, but this book was a good reminder of the importance of doing so; it brought it to the forefront.