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Making Toast: Searching for Gifts in a Changed Life

I’m something of a coward when it comes to reading tragic books or watching tragic movies. Perhaps it’s because, as a pilot who’s lost 25 friends in airplane accidents (due largely to knowing a lot of high-risk flyers, including test pilots, air racers, and aerobatic performers), or as a woman who’s survived and fought my way back from my own near-fatal car wreck, I’ve seen enough of loss and grief. I don’t need to seek it out. So while Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking—a book that chronicled her “Annus Horribilis” following the death of first her husband and then her daughter—was critically acclaimed, I couldn’t quite muster the courage to read it.

But Roger Rosenblatt’s essay “Making Toast”, in the December 15, 2008 issue of the New Yorker (which I just got around to reading) was worth scrounging up the courage to read. Not just because it’s well written, but because it offers more than just a glimpse into tragedy. It’s a beautifully written story about going on with life after a tragedy changes it forever. In December 2007, Rosenblatt’s daughter Amy died suddenly, leaving a husband and three small children. Rosenblatt and his wife end up leaving their own home and moving into an “in-law” apartment at their daughter’s house to help fill the void and take care of the children. And in amongst the ashes of grief, Rosenblatt finds small moments of meaning and connection with his grandchildren, and an ability to value the small passing moments in a way that perhaps he didn’t before. 
One of the most daunting uncharted landscapes any of us face is one wiped clean by tragedy or loss. How on earth does anyone find their way forward across what seems more like an abyss than unmapped territory? Rosenblatt, who’s a gifted essayist on many topics, may not have exact answers for anyone. But his essay is like a letter sent back from an explorer further ahead of us, outlining some of the challenges that lie ahead … and offering, even if unintentionally, some reassurance about both our ability to survive the journey, and some of the unexpected gifts we can find, even in a storm.

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