Rachel Wilson (2023) Losing Young. How to Grieve When Your Life is Just Beginning.

I read some books. Pick others up and start reading them. Think that’s interesting and realise I’ve read it before. I was going to say something about grief. But don’t really know what I’m talking about, which isn’t unusual. I couldn’t, for example, make a podcast about it, as Rachel Wilson did, The Grief Network. Or write this book.

Here (more or less) is her mission statement. ‘When my mother died, I took it for granted a group tailored to twenty something would exist.’

It didn’t. It does now. I read 225 pages including notes. Can’t remember anything. But I’m at that awkward age when I’m going to die sooner rather than later. And I know people that died young. People that have been old, but never young. Others that have never lived. Not really. People that have died and I’m fucking delighted. But that’s not grief. That’s euphoria. When my mum died, I was delighted. She had Alzheimer’s. One of the major killers in our society, she’d gone a long time ago.  I hear a lot of ‘If I get it, shoot me.’  

‘Grief does something particular when it hits you young.’

‘I see The Grief Network and other groups like it at the forefront of a continuing evolution of our understanding of grief.’

Hmmm?

I read books. Pick them down and start re-reading them. Life can be like that. Lots of different ways. All the same outcome.  

Notes.

 “Grief does something particular when it hits you young.” — Rachel Wilson

“Packed with clarity, curiosity and courage.” — Felix White, author of _It’s Always Summer Somewhere

“An important and insightful book about the loneliness of grief and the transformative power of community.” — Gavanndra Hodge