Wish You Were Here
There's a challenge to writing a review of a memoir written by someone you know. In my case this would be Amy Welborn's Wish You Were Here: Travels through Loss and Hope, her book tracing the months from the unexpected death of her husband, Michael Dubruiel, in February of 2009, to the three weeks she and three of her children spent in Sicily the summer of that same year. On one hand, I want to say how movingly Amy writes about this time in her life, how honest and open she is in the book, difficult for an introvert. On the other hand, I wish this were a book she had not written. How can I use words such as "enjoy," "love," "like," when the subject at hand is grief, and not that of a stranger's?
More after the jump
When Amy writes this, it captures how I feel about her book. It would be different for me if this were fiction, or a memoir written by someone I had never met. I really connected with her own conflicted confusion.
Amy honestly and frankly takes us through the months after Michael died, and then the weeks in Sicily. She does not immediately jump to faith-filled certainty, or some spiritual clarity. Instead she expresses this desire
Wish You Were Here is not a simple progression of one woman's faith delivering her from grief into hope. It is, however, a moving read, a real book about a real woman's seeking answers in her Catholic faith to keep on living. There is also humor, fascinating details about travelling in Sicily (I read to my kids the part about gelato sandwiches for breakfast and they are ready to go there, too), and many bittersweet moments. The hope promised in the title does arrive, as Amy concludes the book with scene at a beach too lengthy to quote here, but involves watching her children enjoy themselves at the beach at the end of their Sicilian vacation.
There are some parallels between Amy's 2009 with my 2007. Only a few weeks after Maeve's funeral I left Pittsburgh with Myles to rejoin Randy who was already back in China. I wondered if it looked like I was leaving Pittsburgh too quickly, that maybe people would think I was trying to escape my Pennsylvania grief. If only life were that easy. Reading Wish You Were Here I remembered why we did that and felt less....concerned about what people might have thought then. Fresh, gaping holes in your soul are not tied to a particular geography. Just as Amy at the close of her memoir looks at her still-little boys and sees their lives only just beginning, so, too, we had Myles to consider. What we want for our children, what God wants for us all, is not to give up living, even when our loss comes out of the order we imagined for our own lives, like losing your husband when you still have little children at home (we're supposed to grow old together) or losing a baby (you're supposed to grow up and mourn my loss).
So I'm not in a position to provide a real review, but just some thoughts about reading Wish You Were Here. I am very grateful Amy did write this book. For something that reads more like a proper review, the National Catholic Register had this, which dovetailed (though unintentionally) with Amy's post earlier this week.
More after the jump
This stupid life, in which grace, loss, sadness, and joy are intertwined and even dependent on one another, in which the living are here because others were born and eventually buried, in which we look different because someone died, in which beauty is born out of suffering, mystifies me. I can't sort it out. I just don't know how I am supposed to feel. (location 512)
When Amy writes this, it captures how I feel about her book. It would be different for me if this were fiction, or a memoir written by someone I had never met. I really connected with her own conflicted confusion.
Grief, they say, is not a straight line.
No kidding, I say. Life isn't either, so what fool would expect grief to be any different? (2502)
Amy honestly and frankly takes us through the months after Michael died, and then the weeks in Sicily. She does not immediately jump to faith-filled certainty, or some spiritual clarity. Instead she expresses this desire
It gets old. I understand that grief is not a straight line, but I wonder if I will ever arrive at a strong place made of rock, a place above ground made of trust and faith. (2517)
Wish You Were Here is not a simple progression of one woman's faith delivering her from grief into hope. It is, however, a moving read, a real book about a real woman's seeking answers in her Catholic faith to keep on living. There is also humor, fascinating details about travelling in Sicily (I read to my kids the part about gelato sandwiches for breakfast and they are ready to go there, too), and many bittersweet moments. The hope promised in the title does arrive, as Amy concludes the book with scene at a beach too lengthy to quote here, but involves watching her children enjoy themselves at the beach at the end of their Sicilian vacation.
There are some parallels between Amy's 2009 with my 2007. Only a few weeks after Maeve's funeral I left Pittsburgh with Myles to rejoin Randy who was already back in China. I wondered if it looked like I was leaving Pittsburgh too quickly, that maybe people would think I was trying to escape my Pennsylvania grief. If only life were that easy. Reading Wish You Were Here I remembered why we did that and felt less....concerned about what people might have thought then. Fresh, gaping holes in your soul are not tied to a particular geography. Just as Amy at the close of her memoir looks at her still-little boys and sees their lives only just beginning, so, too, we had Myles to consider. What we want for our children, what God wants for us all, is not to give up living, even when our loss comes out of the order we imagined for our own lives, like losing your husband when you still have little children at home (we're supposed to grow old together) or losing a baby (you're supposed to grow up and mourn my loss).
So I'm not in a position to provide a real review, but just some thoughts about reading Wish You Were Here. I am very grateful Amy did write this book. For something that reads more like a proper review, the National Catholic Register had this, which dovetailed (though unintentionally) with Amy's post earlier this week.
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