I read a good book this week.  The novel has an unusual title, and I'm always attracted to intriguing titles--The Obituary Writer by Ann Hood.  The book tells the story of a woman, Vivien, who lives in San Francisco in 1919 and does not know if the man she loves died in the terrifying 1906 earthquake. She feels the shattering loss and withstands the sickening constancy of not knowing what happened to him.  To assuage some of her own grief, she begins to write obituaries for the hundreds of people who lost loved ones in the quake.  Only her style of writing about the deceased is unique.  She ascertains that people come to her and first give all the details--where their loved one was born, names of siblings, information about their education and what they did for a living.  After the individual summarizes the deceased's life milestones Vivien pronounces, "Let me make you some tea and toast."  And when the sricken person sits down to eat the buttered toast and sip the tea, Vivien says, "Tell me about your loved one."  Viven finds that this is where she uncovers the real heart of the obituary, because the story is not just about the details, but about a life.

I beleive I resonate with the book, because at one time I, too, found myself caught up in processing a loss that had never been resolved.  Here is a brief excerpt from An Ocean Away, the memoir I wrote of the love story between me and my husband.  A stranger in a seminar I attended said to me the equivalent of Vivien's, "Tell me about your loved one."

"It was about twenty-five years ago," I said.

"I met an Italian boy on a cruise sheip and we fell in love--communicated for about a year, saw each other a few times, but then he stopped calling me. I just felt so sad I didn't know what happened."

"Didn't you try to find out anything?" asked the stranger.

"Not really.  I think I felt so hopeless that anything could be done that I gave up."

"I'm sorry," he said.  And  he nodded his head in understanding, his kind eyes testimony to my ancient and authentic mourning.

We do grieve, and our culture is not fond of asking us to remember.  It is somehow more important to move on.  But the one who mourns wants to say the name of their loved one out loud.  They long to have someone offer them a cup of tea, look into their eyes and say, "Tell me about your loved one."