Memorial Days, Geraldine Brooks, author and narrator
On Memorial Day, in 2019, Geraldine Brooks lost her soulmate. From that day forward, she begins a journey to understand and overcome her grief. Moving back and forth between 2019 and 2024, between an island in America and an island in Australia, she reveals her shock and her unpreparedness to deal with so great a sudden and unexpected tragedy. There was no template for her to follow. In addition to her grief, and although they had loved intensely, they had lived independent lives, and she was unaware of how he took care of his many responsibilities that would now fall upon her shoulders. He would have been just as adrift had she been the victim. In a marriage, each spouse has different responsibilities unknown to the other. She learned from her experience that a list should have been made, by each of them, defining their tasks and how they took care of them. Whom does one call for a specific problem, how does one treat certain matters in the home, and what about issues that simply arise in an ordinary daily life? Her suggestion that others do think about making a list is a good one.
Geraldine Brooks and Anthony Lander Horwitz met while studying for advanced degrees. They were not necessarily meant for each other, when one considers he was conservative and she was liberal, he was from the United States and she was from Australia, and he was Jewish and she was not. They overcame their political differences, she converted to Judaism, and they tried out both countries for size. When they actually realized that they were meant to be with each other, for the rest of their lives, lives they hoped would be long and wonderful, adjustments were made.
Without contrivances, Brooks explains how they met, courted and married. The memoir follows their lives as they worked, played, and raised a family. It illustrates the compromises they made for each other. The memoir felt honest, authentic, insightful and so tender as it revealed the author’s emotions and extraordinary love for her husband and his love for her. Their relationship was indeed kismet, and it did end far too soon. Was anyone or anything to blame? She does not blame anyone. In the end she accepts the burden of her grief and her loss, understanding that choices were made and things simply happened that they really did not know they should have changed or done differently. No one can predict the future.
She did a superb job of writing this book. She was grieving over an enormous loss, a man who was not only a gift to her, but had been a gift to the world with his journalism and books. Both had been war correspondents. They had worked together earlier in their lives. The hole he left in her life was too deep to fathom. In this book, she honors the memory of Horwitz, as she deals with her own memories of their lives together, a life that will now be lived on its own. The book truly touched me, but it also advised me about how important it is to be prepared for all eventualities.
Her book is authentic, honest and to the point. There were no wasted words, but there were indeed, some that brought tears to this reader’s eyes. Most people will identify with her confusion and her grief, most people know that at some point, if they haven’t already faced grief, they will have to face it in their lives and will have to deal with it appropriately. There are some things we simply have no control over.
Unlike Doris Kearns Goodwin’s book which ran over 400 pages and delved into politics and seemed to be more about her than the 60’s and her husband, this book was less than 300 pages and very subtly dealt with politics when January 6th and RBG were just barely mentioned. Rather than focus on her own life, Brooks dwelt on their lives together, their joint endeavors, their joyous moments and the hole he left when he suddenly disappeared from her life. The reader gets the feeling that they were truly meant for each other and that the loss was truly enormous, a loss that was compounded when one realizes how bereft she was on the occasion of the death of one of their beloved dogs. Somehow, Geraldine Brooks illustrates how she coped with all of the sudden responsibilities, that no one prepares for, as she revealed all of the consequences of so great a tragic loss. In some instances, she failed to do what she would have hoped to, she wasn’t thinking clearly, she was truly suffering. Interestingly, she does acknowledge what she might have done to alter the outcome, what the system did to make it harder, and how she was expected to go forward versus how she actually did proceed.
I did not expect to enjoy this book and probably would not have picked it had my book club not selected it for next season. I am glad they did. Often when an author reads one’s own book, the result can be disastrous; not so, in this case. A performer might have over emoted and over emphasized at inappropriate times. Brooks read her book with just the right amount of emotion and stressed the narrative in all the right places. It was a genuine and tender exploration into the process of grieving, and an explanation about the roadblocks she had to face because of the bureaucracy and because of people who good naturedly intruded with well-meaning intentions. She acknowledges that sometimes, one needs to be alone to howl, to release the building torment in one’s heart and mind when faced with so unfair and unpreventable an occurrence as the death of a loved one. The questions that arise, the emotional pain that follows, the inadequate responses are dealt with honestly and openly. There is no artifice in this memoir. As Geraldine wrote, and I paraphrase, man plans and G-d laughs.