The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion

At first I didn't understand why Joan Didion titled this book the way she did. The Year of Magical Thinking. What is so magical about your husband of almost forty years dying? I thought it more than a little bizarre.

As I made my way deeper into the memoir, though, I began to understand what she meant by the term "magical thinking." There is something that happens when your life changes in a big way, when someone that used to be there every day is no longer. There arrives an acute awareness of the world around you, of the places you used to go, the things you used to do. Along with this awareness comes a lilting sadness, a quiet chaos, and in Didion's case, a certain inability to accept the missing person's absence. Though it is not a happy feeling, there exists something oddly, well, magical about it.

To add to the devastating situation, at the time of her husband's death, Didion's daughter, Quintana, happened to be lying unconscious in the ICU. Thus, instead of mourning, Didion was fretting over her only child, terrified of the possibility that she might lose her as well.

This memoir by Joan Didion is a journey, beginning at the moment of her husband's death and ending a year later. At the start is a woman clinging to memories and moments and maybes, and nearing the end, a woman who can, perhaps, go on.

In short, it was a powerful book, moving me to feel grateful for what has thus far been a pretty wonderful life. I have heard it described as "detached" and "cold," but I think these people are misinterpreting Didion's openly frank style of writing. What we have here is a most intimate account of grief, written by someone who couldn't have done it any other way. I will openly admit that I feel humbled for having read it as it has reminded me of the intense fragility of life, temporary at best, and subject to change at any given moment.