Talks About Death

The subject of death is something we all like to avoid. We don't like talking about it too much, and this often leads to a falsehood that we are somehow immune to it if we avoid the topic. We see death every day, on our many respective screens, and while it is not as often that we see young death, it happens quite a bit as well.

As someone with an anxiety disorder, I struggle to talk about death without tears and a burning throat, swallowing gulps of air that just don't feel right. I usually also obsess about death, it takes a place in my daily worries, the number one spot, in fact. Sometimes I worry that I may be worsening the actual event for myself. Why live in fear of death if it will come anyway? I am giving myself countless hours of stress over the inevitable.

Some people choose to not think about death at all, they cut themselves off from even the slight thought of it, so it becomes very uncomfortable for them when death happens near to them, a friend of a friend perhaps. They are not prepared at all for death within their close circle. Whether you close death off or think of it every day, we all struggle with the idea of what it means, and what ends with it.

I recently read Here After by Amy Lin, a book so powerful and disheartening that I put it in one of my top spots for best nonfiction + memoir I have ever read.

A short synopsis (created by me):

Amy Lin was in her early thirties when her husband died suddenly. It is not something she has never thought of, in fact just a year before she thought about the possibility when a friend of a friend losing her husband at a young age. It is something that she hopes will not happen for a long time, she and her husband want all the things any young couple does, including growing old together.

In her memoir, she recounts moments from before, after, and the day it happened. She talks about the beautiful moments that made her fall for her husband in the first place, the times when she worried something would happen to him, the times that it did happen, and the horrible moments that followed. I use the word moments because time somehow changes when you are grieving the loss of a partner, moments become longer, and somehow also go by faster in this kind of loss.

We see her life up until a couple of years after his death, and it doesn't get easier for her. But the thing is, we shouldn't expect it to. Better is not what it used to be, and happiness certainly isn't what it was either. When someone goes through something like this, they are never the same, never without the thoughts of the person they lost, and yet society expects you to reach a point of moving on.

She gives us a painstaking account of some of the hardest moments in her life after her husband died, and it is nothing but real and raw human sorrow. Be prepared to cry quite a bit with this one, if you do decide to pick it up. (END SYNOPSIS)

You might be thinking, with how much you worry about death and how much it hurts to think about something like this happening, why did you read it??

You would be right, it is very hard to read things like this, and yet, I feel that it is important. I feel some duty to the people who have had to go through something like this to at least see their story. As an empath, I feel better seeing how painful their lives are after an event such as this, as in, I feel that I can be more empathetic having experienced a little of their story with them.

I think we all need to be a little more empathetic, it makes the world a better place when we understand even a little bit of what someone may be going through. So if you have a wish to understand what that pain looks like, for others, for yourself, or any other reason, this is a great piece of literature that really takes a deep dive into that experience.

I commend Amy Lin for sharing her harrowing story, I know it must have been so difficult to relive some of those moments. I hope it gives her even a seed of comfort to share it with others.