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Comfort: A Journey Through Grief
by
Ann Hood
In 2002, Ann Hood s five-year-old daughter Grace died suddenly from a virulent form of strep throat. Stunned and devastated, the family searched for comfort in a time when none seemed possible. Hood an accomplished novelist was unable to read or write. She could only reflect on her lost daughter the way she looked splashing in the bathtub ... the way we sang Eight Days a W...more
Hardcover, 188 pages
Published
May 1st 2008
by W. W. Norton & Company
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"I believe she would want me to miss her with every cell in my body. And that is how much I ache for her. My arms hurt from not holding her on my lap. My nose aches from not smelling her little-girl sweat and powder and lavender-lotion smell. My eyes sting from not seeing her twirl in ballet class. My ears strain every morning for her calling "Mama!" when she wakes up. My lips reach for her sticky kisses. At night I search for her."
"Or perhaps that is love: a...more
"Or perhaps that is love: a...more
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In a way I hated and loved this book. I hated it because I really didn't like the author. I had an easier time sympathizing with her in the beginning when it was just a mother losing a daughter and what a terrible and tradgic loss it was... however as the book progressed and she talked more about herself and her family I got pretty agitated.
I loved that it was something I could talk to Heather about. I didn't realize how strongly I felt about adoption until I had a discussion with he...more
I loved that it was something I could talk to Heather about. I didn't realize how strongly I felt about adoption until I had a discussion with he...more
In Gretchen Rubin's The Happiness Project, there's a chapter on finding gratitude through remembering the fragility of life. To do this, Rubin reads a series of memoirs on loss. When I started reading Comfort, I asked myself again and again why someone would choose to read such a sad, sad book about the sudden loss of Ann Hood's 5-year old daughter. To feel relieved it didn't happen to them? To appreciate the small moments with their own daughters? My reasons were like Gretchen Rubin's - to...more
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I didn't feel this book was a real "comfort" for grief, until I realized that it was comforting to the 'author' not necessarily those reading it. She worked her way through her grief by writing her thoughts, some of which were really good, but most were thoughts and memories of her daughter.
Favorite quotes:
"Grief is not linear. People kept telling me that once this happened or that passed, everything would be better. Some people gave me one year to grie...more
Favorite quotes:
"Grief is not linear. People kept telling me that once this happened or that passed, everything would be better. Some people gave me one year to grie...more
Shortly after my son was killed, I read Joan Didion's " A Year of Magical Thinking". It was amazing in its description of loss that cannot be shared. However, I must say that Ann Hood has expressed the loss of a child better than anyone I have ever had the discussion with about the personal, singular, life altering experience. I have always said that I only know two women who can understand. Both have lost a child. I also knew two women when I was very young, and it was not until...more
This is a beautiful yet very sad memoir about the sudden death of Ann’s five-year-old daughter, Grace, from an aggressive form of strep throat. Told with integrity and honesty, Ann reveals just how tough it was and still is for her, four years later, to cope with her great loss.
Grace was a beautiful, precocious little girl who was in kindergarten and learning, of all things, to speak Chinese!! Her older brother, Sam, just adored her and the two of them got along like two peas in a ...more
Grace was a beautiful, precocious little girl who was in kindergarten and learning, of all things, to speak Chinese!! Her older brother, Sam, just adored her and the two of them got along like two peas in a ...more
This is a book that no one wants to read because it addresses the unthinkable: the death of a child. Not only the death of a child but the loss of a 5 year old. Having a son and daughter-in-law who spend time in Afghanistan with their jobs in the Army, I think about the possibility of death often. But this book was so raw and honest. It gave me a tiny slice of insight into what it might be like to lose a child and I only hope that I never have to go through what Ann Hood did but I respect her so...more
Heartbreaking. Not to be read before bed. Not only did I lie awake thinking of all I could lose in my life, but I dreamed of loss as well.
It has been a long while since I have read a book that affected me in such a visceral way. Her writing about the loss of her child... I don't know how to say it. I felt as though I was in the hospital room with them, weeping by their sides.
I read the book over the course of a day and a half, but I think I would reccommend smaller doses. It is so very emotional. The chapters lend themselves nicely to a more leisurely pace, I think.
Very authentic. If I were teaching ...more
I read the book over the course of a day and a half, but I think I would reccommend smaller doses. It is so very emotional. The chapters lend themselves nicely to a more leisurely pace, I think.
Very authentic. If I were teaching ...more
A heartbreaking story of a writers tragic loss of her daughter & the spiral descent through grief. Of how Ann Hood found solace & distraction through knitting. Of how she had looked & searched for the answers to her questions without finding much solace & success. All through out the book, I kept thinking if she only knew that death is not the end, that there is a way to reunite her with her little girl & hold her again after this life. I hope & pray somewhere along the way, sometime in the ...more
One hundred sixty pages worth reading. And the title says it all. Here is a writer whose livelihood-- writing -- was lost for months and months after the sudden death of her five year old daughter Grace.
Luckily, for us all, eventually the author was able to set words in motion. What does grief look like? What does grief look like for this particular person, a mother? While each human facing the death of a loved one will have his or her own response, few of us are writers and mother...more
Luckily, for us all, eventually the author was able to set words in motion. What does grief look like? What does grief look like for this particular person, a mother? While each human facing the death of a loved one will have his or her own response, few of us are writers and mother...more
A deceptively tiny memoir that holds a staggering and unfathomable grief- the death of Ann Hood's five year old daughter Grace. Grace contacts a form of Strep that despite a desperate struggle in the hospital and an almost recovery, she dies from. I wouldn't say that the writing here is transcendent, because in a vital way it does not stay aloft of the experience but submerge itself into it. Therefore it's a raw, deeply upsetting and bleak tale. I admire the writer's honesty and was glad that I...more
I wanted to read this book because of the Modern Love essay Ann Hood submitted to the NYT in 2006. I remember that it was my favorite Modern Love essay; it was also the most heart wrenching one I have seen yet.
Not being a parent and not even having any plans to be one in the future or ever, I don't think I'd have any idea what it is to grieve for a child, especially a very young one, had I not read Hood's ML essay and then her subsequent memoir.
I'm not really an overly s...more
Not being a parent and not even having any plans to be one in the future or ever, I don't think I'd have any idea what it is to grieve for a child, especially a very young one, had I not read Hood's ML essay and then her subsequent memoir.
I'm not really an overly s...more
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it,
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Iowa Girl
rated it
Recommends it for:
memoir readers; those grieving for the loss of a child
Shelves:
memoirs-general
I just finished. This was the second time I had picked up the book to read and this time, I read until the book was finished. Reading Ann Hood is like hearing her speak into your ear. A gentle but strong voice that is comforting but a little scary, too, because it is such a powerfully quiet voice. I attended a book group at an independent bookshop that sponsored Ann's visit to promote "The Knitting Circle." Ann Hood in person is marvelous, meetable, totally human and very smart. I...more
I cannot imagine the sorrow of losing a child. My heart goes out to the author. I honestly do not know how I would handle that situation and pray that I never will. However, there were things I didn't get. How can you hate God but not believe in him? God didn't kill her child, an awful virus did. Hating the strep virus would have plainly made more sense to me. This book clearly got me thinking so kudos for that. I've enjoyed this author's fiction and her willingness to share such an intimate exp...more
I read a few pages of this book in the library and just had to take it home. It is the memoir of a woman who's five-year-old daughter died suddenly of a rare type of strep. Heart-breaking and real, yet, not depressing, it is a lovely written memorial to the daughter she loved and knew so well. If one only reads the prologue, an essay on the lies people tell the grieving, it is worth your visit to the library.
Now that I've finished this book, one that I picked up and read in small doses because it was too painful to read all at once, I can say that it eats at all the fears you have as a mother. While I never experienced the pain of losing a child, both of my children were in dangerous situations, my oldest had spinal meningitis at three months of age, and my youngest contracted blood poisoning from a dog bite when she was seven. In both cases my husband and I experienced the frenzy of doctors runni...more
Definitely had a sense how the death of her daughter affected her. In the beginning she was existing day to day with her grief overshadowing everything. There just didn't seem to be any answers as to why her little girl died. She wanted somebody to blame or to be angry with ...but who? When she & her husband decide to adopt it's like a beacon of hope leading the way to a life of living with their daughter's death but never forgetting her. Poignantly written and you could feel the turmoil Ann Hoo...more
This book spoke to me from my pile. As much as I didn't want to read it right now, I knew that it was calling to me for a reason. Her writing is beautiful and she makes you feel "normal" in terms of grief as she so adequately describes the quirkiness of it. It goes without saying that you will cry. Therapeutic for sure. Quick read that really makes a lot of sense and touches the heart. I would highly recommend it to anyone-especially those that have lost someone.
I had many books about death and dying recommended to me after Ben, but this was the only one that really "got it", in my opinion. Probably because she also lost a child. I actually had a very hard time reading this, and found myself only reading a page or so at a time. I enjoyed it immensely, though, and plan to buy a copy to reread from time to time.
The grief of losing a child is the most unbearable grief in the world yet it happens to so many - some of them my friends. This memoir of the author Ann Hood's journey to that unspeakable place after the sudden death of her five year old daughter is wrenching, lyrical, agonizing and so utterly real in its lack of any answers or even hope that it ever goes away. She says that she lives in two worlds: one that she functions in, laughs in, loves her other children, her husband and job but at any mo...more
This is a heart wrenching story of a mother who loses her 5 year old daughter to a rare form of strep in a matter of hours. What enfolds is her journey back from and through grief. Hood has a wonderful style of writing that is very inviting and intimate. I plan on reading her book "The Knitting Circle" next which is the fiction account of the same story.
I agree with Jacquelyn Mitchard's review stating that this book is "unprecedented" and "unsurpassed even by Joan Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking." Ann Hood is so genuine - her writing is, at time raw and difficult to read, but so very real. Too often we say platitudes and strive to comfort others when really all we're doing is protecting ourself. Hood describes her very real experience - one that feels very illogical - in a non-linear manner that nonetheless makes perfe...more
How can one recommend a book that is so sad? Many people would shy away from reading a book about the death of a child. But by not reading Hood's journey through grief, one would miss so much.
Hood's journey, like that of every parent who has lost a child, will never end. It will just get less raw, although at times it will still overwhelm. I do not think I have ever read anything more heartfelt, more eloquent, more full of what a parent goes through when the worst has happened.
...more
Hood's journey, like that of every parent who has lost a child, will never end. It will just get less raw, although at times it will still overwhelm. I do not think I have ever read anything more heartfelt, more eloquent, more full of what a parent goes through when the worst has happened.
...more
Incredibly written. Very honest description of the grief Ann Hood experiences after losing her daughter. I cannot imagine what it must be like to lose a child.
Interesting because I knew some of the people she writes about in this book (she is married to my husband's cousin), and Grace and her family were at our wedding.
Interesting because I knew some of the people she writes about in this book (she is married to my husband's cousin), and Grace and her family were at our wedding.
Oh my. This was hard to read, but so good too. I had to keep stopping to cry, or to grab my little girls and just smell them and tell them I love them. It made my heart hurt to read this, but it also reminded me to never take anything for granted and to take advantage of every precious second we have with those we love.
I read this in an effort to understand and try to relate to friends who have lost children. This memoir which reads like a collection of essays is touching and beautifully tragic. The first chapters had me cherishing everything my kids did (which is hard to do sometimes entering the final rounds of summer before school starts). As I continued to read, Ann relates the sadness, lonliness, and grief so completely that I felt thrown into despair myself, and paranoid that I would never let the kid...more
If the death of a daughter is unimaginable, it is compounded by how Hood manages to beautifully convey her experience with both honesty and elegance. Tears came to my eyes as I read it, as I wrote the review, as I write this. For more:
http://satiasreviews.blogspot.com/2011/0...
http://satiasreviews.blogspot.com/2011/0...
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Ann Hood was born in West Warwick, Rhode Island. She grew up with stories of her father's travels around the world during his 20 years in the Navy. These stories inspired her to become a flight attendant for TWA after receiving her BA in English from the University of Rhode Island. She lived in Boston and St. Louis before moving to New York City, where she attended graduate school at NYU in Americ...more
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“Even now, there are still days so beautiful, I almost believe in God. (132)”
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8 people liked it
“Grief is not linear. People kept telling me that once this happened or that passed, everything would be better. Some people gave me one year to grieve. They saw grief as a straight line, with a beginning, middle, and end. But it is not linear. It is disjointed. One day you are acting almost like a normal person. You maybe even manage to take a shower. Your clothes match. You think the autumn leaves look pretty, or enjoy the sound of snow crunching under your feet. Then a song, a glimpse of something, or maybe even nothing sends you back into the hole of grief. It is not one step forward, two steps back. It is a jumble. It is hours that are all right, and weeks that aren't. Or it is good days and bad days. Or it is the weight of sadness making you look different to others and nothing helps.”
—
7 people liked it
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