The Year of Magical Thinking

Life changes fast.

Life changes in the instant.

You sit down to dinner and life as you know it ends.

Joan Didion, The Year of Magical Thinking.

In late 2003, Joan Didion and John Dunne’s daughter, Quintana, fell ill with what at first seemed to be the flu, then pneumonia, then complete septic shock. The doctors put her into an induced coma and onto life support.

Then a few days before Christmas, just as they were just sitting down to dinner after visiting Quintana in hospital, John suffered a massive and fatal coronary.

This book is about the year after, as Joan tries to make sense of a world without John. Her grief, bewilderment, anger, all come through clearly and painfully. You follow Joan viscerally and vicariously as she, a respected American writer herself, seeks solace and answers in literature - she searches for the hows and whys in medical journals, and in poetry and prose she asks yet more hows and whys.

I picked up a copy at Borders over a year ago now and got a few chapters in but then put it down, not to pick it up again until a few days ago.

I have dealt personally with death and am no stranger to grieving - my father 20 years ago, uncles, aunts, even friends. All were sad, and some truly shocking in their unexpectedness. My own spiritual outlook on life is that death is simply a step to another life.

And yet, I struggled with this book. Joan’s pain was too alive, too clear, like a bleeding cut washed for the first time under running water. It was a pain too sharp.

I eventually pulled my hand away and put the book aside until, as I mentioned, a few days ago.

In March this year, my ex-schoolmate Nicholas lost his wife, Karie. She had, like Quintana, started with a flu, gotten worse but then was gradually improving. An obstruction in her trachea reversed the situation with deadly and tragic effect. From thousands of miles away we read the news by email and were all shocked and saddened. Nick and Karie had a daughter and we heard often about their happy home life, now shattered by grief.

A couple of months ago, my Aunt Helene passed away. She had just come back from dinner, complained of feeling unwell then suddenly slumped over. She was 70 and had until the last moment been bubbly, loud, lively, friendly, caring.

When I got the message early the next morning, I thought it could not be - that the sender had got the details mixed up. Not Helene, she was indestructible. She was too full of life, closer 50 years than 70 - surely not her.

But it was our families, her siblings, and her daughter, Pauline, and husband, Henry, who had to carry on, asking hows and whys.

Then yesterday afternoon, I saw an email from another friend in Australia saying our friend in Singapore, Pritam, had lost his daughter who was studying in Melbourne. The details emerged after some frantic calling, emailing and messaging about. A freak skating accident, she had fallen and failed to regain consciousness.

She was a houseman, embarking on a medical career - like her father before her. And like her brother, who had passed away the year before.

Our friend, Singam, wrote “I cannot begin to fathom why this has to happen to anyone - to first tragically lose a son and then a daughter just as they end their studentship and are about to begin their careers. If life is random, this is utterly cruel. The imbalance defies all odds.”

Singam and I share a commonality of spiritual perspective. In previous discussions we have found that we agree on a number of spiritual concepts, not the least of which is that physical life is impermanent and transient and death is merely a step for life to begin afresh.

And yet… Singam’s words indicate a sort of confusion. One I am feeling all too acutely now too.
In the last year and a half I have lost relatives and friends.

“Life changes fast.
Life changes in the instant.
You sit down to dinner and life as you know it ends.”

What did you discover, Joan, at the end of your year of magical thinking? What answers came to you? What enlightenment did you attain? How did you come to deal with your grief?
I think it’s time for me to finish the book now.

Sad to think that shortly after you finished writing it, you had to deal afresh with grief - Quintana too, died.

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The Year of Magical Thinking