Dear Lit Loves,
Happy 2024! I am absolutely shocked at everything that has happened in my life in the last year. When I look back on 2023, it just appears as a blur of activity and losses once my mom died at the beginning of 2023 from stage four esophageal cancer. Maybe seven to eight weeks after diagnosis, my mom was gone. No real time to begin to digest what was taking place much less comprehend how much trauma my sibling and I would navigate after losing our last parent who up till the end of her life, still resided in our childhood home of nearly 50 years.
On that note, it is most likely no surprise that Meghan Riordan Jarvis's book, End Of The Hour: A Therapist's Memoir, caught my attention. Essentially, the book is about what happens when a trauma therapist is overwhelmed by loss. I tend to think therapists have it all together emotionally so I was intrigued that a therapist would write about the overwhelming loss of both parents within nearly a year of one another. So, I took the plunge and read the book!
Unlike most editors and literary agents, I like memoirs that are written in a raw, gritty manner (aka tell it like it is). I get turned off by memoirs written about difficult subjects that are heavy on frilly description and elevated prose. Just shoot it to me straight as if we are having lunch together, you know? I was not disappointed in this memoir because Meghan Riordan Jarvis does an excellent job of relaying the messy, turbulent wreckage that can happen to any of us after the death of a loved one.
First, we see the author as a nine-year -old learning that a best friend's brother has suddenly died from drowning. Her many siblings and adults go silent. Meghan's mother gets the rosary. The whole event stirs within Meghan a mix of anxiety and grief. Why won't anyone mention or talk about the deceased brother again? Why won't her best friend whose brother died talk about her brother and what happened to him? It's like everyone is trying to tiptoe through a minefield.
Next, we learn that Meghan was one of many siblings and her father was often not at home during the week. And while growing up, Meghan often wonders why her mother is crying at night? As she advances in age, she realizes that as a child she internalized the art of minimizing your own needs in order to put others' needs first. She uncovers the revelation that she still lives by the rules and beliefs set forth by her parents.
When Meghan's father is in the final stages of his life, she is often the one with him at the hospital. She even takes down the names and contact information of who her father wants notified once he dies. And it was extremely important that her father not die in a bland, sterilized hospital environment but rather at home on the Cape in his own bedroom with a view of the ocean. Interestingly, Meghan's mom becomes the gatekeeper in terms of access to her father in his final weeks of life. And then once her father passes, Meghan realizes her mother does not remember much of what happened the week her father died because the hippocampus, or part of the brain responsible for memory, malfunctions under stress leaving one with only fractured memories.
When Meghan's mom dies, she is stunned, disconcerted, and panicked. Even after the funeral and Meghan's eulogy of her mother, she returns home to find herself still emotionally fragile. She is so incredibly overwhelmed by loss she regurgitates on the return trip to her DC home from her parents' home on the Cape. When she forces herself to attend her son's sixth grade open house, she appears fine until the teacher mentions how she and her mother went camping in Alaska over the summer. The urge to scream sets in as she wonders why this teacher got more time with her mom than she did. And when one of the other parents informs the teacher that she is distressed to learn that the subject of death was discussed during class on a previous day, Meghan has to leave. What's the problem with talking about death? Why do some parents demand their child not be privy to discussions of death? Why is the discussion of death so taboo?
When Megan finds herself swimming at three in the morning, sitting in the shower with her cell phone, and trying to understand why her body is breaking down physically and mentally, it is her best friend who pulls the fire alarm. Her best friend has the guts to say, "You need next level care." Meghan puts her best friend on ice, but eventually realizes her best friend is right. And yes, Meghan signs up for care at the very facility she recommends to her trauma patients in therapy.
And the trauma treatment facility is where the author learns her anxiety may stem not from the fact that help was not available during childhood, but that she never learned to ask for help. For three weeks Meghan works through her panic and anxiety regarding the loss of her parents via a host of therapists and activities along with an occasional field trip. Here's the truth: no one is coming to save you but you. We don't really own anything except our memories which fade with time. Essentially, we all eventually will encounter the death of our nearest and dearest. Grief is different for each individual. It is up to us to learn to live without those we love and the places and traditions dearest to us. It is we who must find the resolve to keep moving forward after a loved one's death even if it is only one baby step at a time.
I highly recommend this book to anyone experiencing traumatic, complex grief, to grief counselors, and to all grief support groups.
Till my next review,
Grace (Amy)
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