Everything is Horrible and Wonderful: A Tragicomic Memoir of Genius, Heroin, Love, and Loss

by Stephanie Wittels Wach

We are all horrible and wonderful and figuring it out.’”

I finally understand the meaning of acceptance on the grief chart. It’s not that the bereaved ever accepts the death of the loved one—I will never accept your death—it’s that you come to accept that these really are your shitty, irreversible circumstances. One day, it just becomes clear: this is the way it is now.

I often wonder when all of this will end, but there is no end to grief. There’s only navigating the way to a new normal.

I think about the day a person dies, how the morning is just a morning, a meal is just a meal, a song is just a song. It’s not the last morning, or the last meal, or the last song. It’s all very ordinary, and then it’s all very over. The space between life and death is a moment.

And while it was over for you in a moment (at least I hope it was that fast), it will remain alive in me for hundreds of thousands of future moments. I am forever changed by something that happened to you in a moment.

My sweet child is now an empowered “threenager” who refuses to listen most of the time and tantrums her way through 50 percent of her life. And I miss the mark on responding to her in a positive way 50 percent of the time. Parenting is hard.

But I’m doing the best that I can. We’re all doing the best we can. And