Grieving is Loving

August 24, 2020
In this soothing work, Cacciatore (Bearing the Unbearable) serves as an empathetic and compassionate companion to those experiencing grief. Grief is a natural response to loss, Cacciatore writes, and it can be an overwhelming emotion for those going through it. Cacciatore urges readers to “fully inhabit” the process of grief rather than succumbing to narratives that pathologize it, and argues that grief is inevitable but also the very process by which “we are able to become fully human.” It also, she writes, creates opportunities for celebrating love, forging connections, and cultivating wisdom. The bulk of the text is a collection of stream-of-consciousness meditations, which are studded with the words of writers including James Baldwin, Kahlil Gibran, C.S. Lewis, Mark Twain, and Rumi, among others, and can be read in any order. Anyone who has mourned a loss will find Cacciatore’s insights about the difficult yet transformative experience of grief to be helpful.