stricken: the 5,000 stages of grief

Last night, Wed., Jan. 28, I participated in a book reading at BookPeople. The book is Stricken: The 5,000 Stages of Grief, published by Dalton. It's a collection of essays about grief, and several of the local essayists, including me, read from our essays.

Spike Gillespie, whom I met a couple of years ago, pulled me into this with her indefatigable energy. She's one of the co-editors.

So...grief isn't exactly a happy topic. I wondered who would come, if there would be much of a turnout besides the contributors and editors and folks from Dalton. Our society doesn't exactly embrace grief, and yet each one of us will experience loss and ultimately death.

I'm glad to say the turnout was good. The BookPeople staff had to bring down more chairs from the third floor to seat everyone.

I was in awe of some of the writers, and some of them were especially good at reading aloud.

I was just happy I got through my piece without breaking down. The loss of my sister is still emotional for me. I paused a couple of times to gather myself. I could hear the emotion in my voice and feel it on my face. It was so different reading aloud to people I mostly don't know than it was rehearsing by myself to figure out when 5 minutes was up.

Everyone who read had something to say that stuck with me. The biggest lesson is that grief is about love. Or maybe grief is love. It opens the heart, and in that sense, it is joyful and alive. What a paradox, huh? A Zen priest told a story about counseling a woman whose husband was so locked up after the death of their son that he couldn't be there for her when she had cancer. Surrendering to grief may seem fearful, but it's the only healthy way to move through it.

My friends Katie and Keith were there, and I am so grateful for their presence. I didn't go out of my way to invite people, out of fear that I might be inviting them to a bummed-out experience. They volunteered to come without any pressure on my part, and I'm glad they came.

I'm going to post separately the first part of my essay. To read the rest, buy the book! It's available for pre-order at Amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/Stricken-5-000-Stages-Grief/dp/0981744362/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1233278022&sr=1-2 It will be available in March.

There's also a social networking site for the book at http://strickenbygrief.ning.com/ where you can read and post comments.

There were funny parts to the evening, too. One was Spike, an inveterate knitter, telling us she'd just learned that stricken is the German word for knitting. Another was spying a chartreuse book cover with the title LOVE + SEX with ROBOTS and realizing it just wasn't going to be all sad.