It’s been a difficult week.
On Monday, the brother of a good friend passed away at the age of 41 from metastatic melanoma. Feeling sad, the next day I picked up Claire Bidwell Smith’s new memoir, The Rules of Inheritance (Hudson Street Press, 2012). I finished it twenty-four hours later.
Several weeks earlier, I’d learned about this book thanks to Stuart Beaton’s interview with Claire Bidwell Smith: http://rastous.podomatic.com/player/web/2012-02-27T17_29_46-08_00
Bidwell Smith is a therapist who specializes in grief counseling. Her memoir chronicles the tumultuous path she took to get to the point where she could deal with the grief of losing her parents before the age of 25. She reveals the outline of her story in the beginning of the book, but it works so well because her writing captured my attention from start to finish.
The book is structured into five parts that follow Elisabeth Kubler-Ross’s Five Stages of Grief. I also like how she doesn’t follow a chronological timeline, which she pulls off flawlessly.
Bidwell Smith was the only child of older parents. When she was 14, both parents were diagnosed with cancer. Her mother passed away from colon cancer when Claire was 18; her father also died from cancer six years later when Claire was 24.
Although she can never bring her parents back, Bidwell Smith learns to live with her grief and get on with her life. It’s a sad story, but it’s also an uplifting one.
So yesterday I dragged my youngest child to an independent bookstore to pick up a copy for my friend who just lost her brother. Like Bidwell Smith, my friend works in hospice and blogs about her experiences, so I thought she might find The Rules of Inheritance to be a helpful book.
When I brought the book to the checkout counter, the saleswoman turned it over to scan the price and read the back cover blurbs.
“Do you know what this book is about?” she asked incredulously.
“Yes. In fact, I just finished it and want to buy it for a friend who just lost her brother.” And I went on to tell her about the story. We discussed it along with Cheryl Strayed’s book, Wild (another grief memoir), and ended up having a lovely conversation about something we’ll all experience at some point.
The saleswoman never told me why she was so interested in talking about this, but she wrote down the name of Bidwell Smith’s book and took down Cheryl Strayed’s name, too.
I’ve never had a conversation like that at a chain bookstore.
So sorry about your friend’s brother, Susan! 🙁
This book sounds very good … what sad circumstances! I admire books that can pull of being sad and uplifting simultaneously.
Thanks so much!
Claire Bidwell Smith is such a beautiful writer. Yes, her book gives hope even under such dire circumstances. And the good news is that she’s now pregnant with her second child!
Susan,
Your insights, along with so many messages I’ve been soaking in from various people and their experiences, in recent weeks and months, has me wanting to explore the way humans have dealt with death in different cultures and ages. I love that you had that exchange with the saleswoman. It’s so great when we connect with a complete stranger and exchange ideas.
Thank you so much, Judy. It was all the more special to have that conversation because we were in the bookstore across from the tea shop where we went with your mom last year.
When it comes to grief or coping with it, Asians aren’t too good or keen on discussing or letting the world know. I don’t know why. We even consider it morbid to even talk about it. Not that we don’t grief. We just keep it within ourselves. We are not expected to show it. Of course crying at funeral is common. Afterwards we are expected to move on with life and not mull over it. I don’t know, but generally this not wanting to talk openly about grief or how to cope with it has not adversely affected us. But I do think that talking about one’s grief may actually help one to come to terms with one’s loss of a loved one early.
Now that I think about it, I can see how the subject of death rarely entered my conversations during my first marriage. Once I asked my former husband (when we were still married) what he wanted to do when that time came. He wouldn’t discuss it. But that’s not unusual in the US, too. I think it’s only recent that people have been able to talk about it in the US. Hospice is a fairly recent development and many people don’t use it when the time comes. They just don’t want to admit what’s to come. This story is also a coming of age one that includes drinking and codependent relationships. So even without the death component, it’s reassuring to know that people can go through rough times and still succeed later on.
It’s nice to know someone buys books because they listen to my interviews – I’m sure it happens quite often, but I never hear about it…
I love the conversation you had in the store. That’s something you’d never get on Amazon, or in a big chain store, no…
I’m glad you enjoyed the book, too!
Thank you, Stuart!
I not only enjoyed the conversation, but I felt like I enlightened the saleswoman about the book (it seemed like she wasn’t familiar with it). There’s nothing better than to discuss books and learn from one another.