It’s hard to review a book such as The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion because one doesn’t wish to make the trials and heartbreak during the year referred to in the title. I have nothing but heartfelt sympathy for someone who, while dealing with a hospitalized, comatose daughter, sees her husband of forty years die of a massive, instantaneous heart attack. That she chose to write a book chronicling the events immediately before that event and for a year afterwards is a courageous act. And probably very therapeutic as well.
The title could almost as easily have been “The Year of Wishful Thinking” as Ms. Didion did wish so strongly that she could rewind and run the tape of life again from before the heart attack, before the fever that attacked her daughter. Maybe the results would be different the next time. Or maybe she could pause the tape at the right moment and would never have to see her husband leave so suddenly without so much as a good-bye.
The book doesn’t detail the stages of grief and coming to terms with reality as much as it opens up a stage on which you see Didion coming to realize that her life doesn’t pause, doesn’t stop or rewind, that in fact she continues to experience joyful moments and deep sorrow, stress and anxiety, friendship and support. The world doesn’t stop at the loss of John, nor can Joan stop living, as much as she wants to from time to time.
The book had a powerful effect on how I now anticipate my last days or that of my wife. A lingering illness before death is a burden on the dying as well as the caregivers – painful but lightened by the sharing. A sudden death leaves a burden to be borne solely by those left behind. Now I’m not so sure I want to go quickly in my sleep. Not that any of us really have a choice in the matter.
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