The Story Behind Owning Grief

How will Gael, now a widow at 41, manage to raise these little girls alone? With my own young kids at home, I couldn’t help but wonder how I might cope if, God forbid, that same terrible hand should be dealt to me. How will Gael, now a widow at 41, manage to raise these little girls alone? With my own young kids at home, I couldn’t help but wonder how I might cope if, God forbid, that same terrible hand should be dealt to me.

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Days later, crammed into St. Catherine’s Catholic Church in Milwaukee with more than 1,000 other mourners, I sat in a back pew, watching in awe as Gael stood up at the end of the funeral and strode toward the podium. She sized up the crowd with determined eyes, took a deep breath, and declared to us all how much she loved Steve and always would. She would make sure that her girls would never forget him. I could see shoulders shaking and hear the muffled sounds of sobbing, including my own, at her powerful, heartbreaking testimony. We all stumbled out of the church in a kind of daze.

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Gael and I met again about six years later when our two oldest children joined the Ulster Project, a collaboration to get Catholic and Protestant teenagers from America and Northern Ireland together. Noble as its mission was, the reality was four weeks of nearly non-stop schlepping from water parks to concerts to pool parties. From what I could see, Gael was bravely soldiering on. True to her word, she was somehow managing to raise these girls on her own, working to make ends meet, cooking, cleaning, shoveling, raking, and driving – lots and lots and lots of driving.

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Having lost a sister and brother to suicide, I knew more than I wanted to about grief. People often ask how you can keep going in the face of such tragedy when the simple truth is you don’t have any other good choices. This was especially true for Gael. She and I spent several hours together that summer having soulful discussions about this. I could see right away that Gael was the kind of person you’d want to spend time with. She does not shy away from talking about the tough stuff, but, at the same time, there is no bitterness to her. She has that winning combination of being tough-minded and tender-hearted. With each conversation we had, I found new reasons to admire her.

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Though Gael and I did not see one another often, our lives kept crisscrossing. I always look forward to seeing her. When I learned that she was writing a memoir, I was intrigued. How, indeed, had she managed all these years? She sent me a copy of her latest draft. I told myself I’d read a few chapters and get to the rest when I could. I was finishing my own memoir and was busy teaching investigative reporting at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism. To top it off, I’d just had hip replacement surgery and was battling Covid alone in New York City.

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After the first chapter, I knew I could not let go. By 2:30 a.m. I’d finished the whole book, bleary-eyed but eager to go back and read it again. There is so much wisdom here, compelling lessons for anyone who has suffered an unexpected loss or found themselves alone with crushing responsibilities.

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I can only imagine how painful this was for her to write, revisiting those terrifying hours as she desperately searched for answers to why Steve had not made it home from a business trip to Cincinnati. Or, the agonizing days leading up to his funeral, or the months and years that followed, watching her girls struggle, another Father’s Day with no father to celebrate. And yet, this is a book of hope and triumph. There is so much to celebrate.

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Even if you have never met Steve, you will know this fun-loving man once you have read this book. Gael, a skilled journalist, brings Steve’s spirit back to life with her words. Readers will sit with Gael as she pours over bills, worrying about how she will keep her girls in their childhood home. You will stand at her side in exhaustion and despair as she shovels her driveway late one winter night. You will delight as her girls grow to become a strong, determined woman, like their mother. You will imagine the pride that Steve would feel if he could see how this all turned out.

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Gael has given us all a great gift with this book, the unblinking account of how she found the strength to keep going because she had to.

 

Just as her words in the church that October morning gave us all reason to believe she would find a way to make this work, this strong, brave woman’s book will help others through their grief, confusion, and fear. Gael has shown us how to do so with grace, humor, and a tender heart.

 

Meg Kissinger

Investigative journalist
James Madison Visiting Professor
Graduate School of Journalism
Columbia University

Pulitzer Prize Finalist