What Goodbye Really Means
Over the summer, I spent a long time reading and fully taking in Joan Didion's memoir, The Year of Magical Thinking. This book is Joan Didion’s narration of the year succeeding her husband’s death. The death of Didion’s husband, the writer John Gregory Dunne, led to a year greatly summarized by grief. The book outlines how Didion attempts to cope with the grief caused by the death of her husband while providing treatment for her daughter, Quintana’s severe illness. Didion copes with her grief the same way she has her whole life-- through her own writing. However, what makes this instance any different?
Her husband is no longer working beside her, instead, he is a ghostly absence that she can’t seem to stop looking back at. When discussing this memoir with Mackenzie Jones, she said, “Joan Didion’s memoir perfectly displays the five stages of grief and through her story, she connects to her readers.”Death is the most common occurrence, we all experience it and we all slowly watch our loved ones pass before us. The grief that follows death needs an intense coping mechanism in which Didion was able to find within the writings of famous writers, psychologists, and psychiatrists. After interviewing Melina Sandel, “At first I thought the memoir was exaggerated but then I realized that was because I was ignorant to grief.”
For me at least, maybe it took me a month after reading this book to figure out what this book really means, what goodbye really means. Towards the end of the summer, my great aunt passed away, so I found myself attending her wake and funeral. While at the funeral home, a man who I did not know came up to me and he told me that we only have this one life to figure ourselves out, to figure out who we are and who we can prosper to be. Life really can take a turn for the worse any day. If it wasn't for this man who came up to me while waiting near the door at the funeral parlor, I don't think I would have experienced that night the same way.
After he spoke to me, the whole book clicked in my head. The whole feeling of goodbye clicked in my head. For that night, I felt protected by my own thoughts, by Joan Didion's thoughts, and by that stranger's thoughts. These thoughts made goodbye seem easier, and that is why writing is so important.
While discussing Joan Didion’s writing with Isabella Mule she said, “Her writing is very realistic and way more in depth than most people who write about this topic. This could help anyone who has experienced a similar loss.” Books really can impact your life and make you cope effectively with things you could never imagine you could cope with.
Joan Didion, in my opinion, deserved every reward she received for this book, after reading this book I look at the idea of goodbye so differently. Grief really does take time to heal and Didion made that healing process so clear in her book. The second we are able to accept what we have lost is the second we can move and let them go. Remember, moving on isn’t saying goodbye, it’s not forgetting, but it’s more of, “I will see you soon” and you’ll always hold a special place in my heart.