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jabulani 's review for:
Notes on Grief
by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
I admit my bias. I read this book, tonight, 18 days after my dad died. Eighteen days ago, he was still breathing and talking and living with me in my house. So this book touched me where no other words, no other person, has been able to touch, a place deep within a winding labyrinth where grief lives and burns bright.
I lost my dad on 5 June, almost a year to the day when Adichie lost her dad. The torture and anguish from the confines of quarantine amidst a pandemic hum in the same key. The parallels in thought, in absolute rage, are uncanny. Simply and completely uncanny. This book is small and so so mighty. I happened on it browsing authors I’ve read before, when the title was revealed to me (thank you, whoever or whatever you are). This is the least alone I have felt in the past 18 days, the most understood and HELD. As I read her book, alone, on the couch in my living room, my husband and babies healthy and safe and asleep upstairs, I am a mere 20 paces from my dad’s room, where he was just sleeping, and resting, and laughing, and talking, just 18 days ago.
I lost my dad on 5 June, almost a year to the day when Adichie lost her dad. The torture and anguish from the confines of quarantine amidst a pandemic hum in the same key. The parallels in thought, in absolute rage, are uncanny. Simply and completely uncanny. This book is small and so so mighty. I happened on it browsing authors I’ve read before, when the title was revealed to me (thank you, whoever or whatever you are). This is the least alone I have felt in the past 18 days, the most understood and HELD. As I read her book, alone, on the couch in my living room, my husband and babies healthy and safe and asleep upstairs, I am a mere 20 paces from my dad’s room, where he was just sleeping, and resting, and laughing, and talking, just 18 days ago.