This has found its feet. The main character is interesting. The writing is clear and strong.
I'm having an insomniac night. I'm glad to be in the company of a book, even one about broken people and their grief.
The main character talks about *the weight" of her dead. She carries them with her. Sees them at her breakfast table.
I like "weight" as a description.
I'm a civilian. No PTSD for me. But that doesn't mean no weight. I don't see anyone but the living at my breakfast table. I don't get glimpses of the gone.
My dead are like potholes in my road, cavities in my teeth, absences that make themselves known from time to time and snag all of my attention.
In my experience, grief doesn't move through six neatly labelled stages and then stop. It comes in waves that drench you and then leave. Sometimes it's just a splash. Sometimes they roll you for a while, so you don't know which way is up and breathing becomes difficult.
I'm thankful that I don't have the survivor guilt this book focuses on. I haven't survived anything. I just haven't had my turn yet.
Grief is bad enough without guilt.
Tonight's wave has ebbed. I'm sitting here on the still-damp beach of memory, too awake to sleep, too sleepy to do anything but ramble.
And maybe read.
I'll go back to that for a while. I have a helicopter waiting to take me to Wyoming. I always liked Wyoming but I've never been in a helicopter.
Good night everyone. Thanks for listening to me ramble.
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