Expanding on her original New Yorker piece, Adichie shares how this loss shook her to her core.
She writes about being one of the millions of people grieving this year; about the familial and cultural dimensions of grief and also about the loneliness and anger that are unavoidable in it.
With signature precision of language, and glittering, devastating detail on the page--and never without touches of rich, honest humor--Adichie weaves together her own experience of her father’s death with threads of his life story, from his remarkable survival during the Biafran war, through a long career as a statistics professor, into the days of the pandemic in which he’d stay connected with his children and grandchildren over video chat from the family home in Abba, Nigeria.
In the compact format of We Should All Be Feminists and Dear Ijeawele, Adichie delivers a gem of a book--a book that fundamentally connects us to one another as it probes one of the most universal human experiences.
Notes on Grief is a book for this moment—a work readers will treasure and share now more than ever--and yet will prove durable and timeless, an indispensable addition to Adichie's canon.
My Review of Notes on Grief by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Prior to the time I lost my dad, I didn't know what grief was. The concept of death didn't make sense to me. Because why should it?
Death was what happened to other people, grief was other people's cross to bear, and I didn't imagine a day would come when I will feel what grief is, when I will want to explain what I feel, but will lack words.
I didn't fully understand the concept of death, its permanence, its ability to snatch a part of your beating heart, leaving you powerless, crumpled, defeated.
And even when it hit me, I didn't know what to call those emotions, that excruciating pain in your heart when your chest tightens to the realization that you would never be able to see your loved one again.
That ache in your head, when imaginary bricklayers lay bricks on it, forcing you to carry all that weight, to endure all that discomfort, when you think of all the times you didn't do what they wanted, all the time you made them stress and shout.
This book carries words that I had longed to say, words that eluded me since the very first day I felt was grief was, firsthand.
Grief isn't an easy experience. This day, you think you've fully adjusted to the new life that's void of your loved one, and the next, you're crumbling in a disheveled heap, and wondering what you would have done better, if you can do anything at all to see them one last time and tell them you love them.
Chimamanda laments the loss of her father, and pens down what grief really is. The words in this book are for all of us, who have experienced grief, locked lips with it, drank from its cup, but don't know know how to translate that heart wrenching feeling into words.
She regrets making future plans with her father, saying these words, 'till next time,' when there really is no next time.
This book is beyond emotional, it strips you bare, and takes you to the memory lane, when you have all the time in the world to spend with your loved one, before they leave.
When they say 'life is too short,' we think we are the privileged ones, who have lots of time on their hands, and the shortness of life can never affect us. But we're mistaken.
You would never understand the randomness of death, how often it strikes, how impartial it is, till it visits you, and only then will you realize that we won't be here forever.
So express those emotions, make those memories, because at the end of the day, all we have left is the memories we make with our loved ones.
I will quote my favorite part of the book:
Grief is a cruel kind of education. You learn how ungentle mourning can be. You learn how glib condolences can feel. You learn how much grief is about language, the failure of language and the grasping of language...
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