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Memorial Days
Memorial Days: A Memoir | Geraldine Brooks
A heartrending and beautiful memoir of sudden loss and a journey towards peace, from the bestselling, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Horse Many cultural and religious traditions expect those who are grieving to step away from the world. In contemporary life, we are more often met with red tape and to-do lists. This is exactly what happened to Geraldine Brooks when her partner of more than three decades, Tony Horwitz just sixty years old and, to her knowledge, vigorous and healthy collapsed and died on a Washington, D. C. sidewalk. After spending their early years together in conflict zones as foreign correspondents, Geraldine and Tony settled down to raise two boys on Marthas Vineyard. The life they built was one of meaningful work, good humor, and tenderness, as they spent their days writing and their evenings cooking family dinners or watching the sun set with friends at the beach. But all of this ended abruptly when, on Memorial Day 2019, Geraldine received the phone call we all dread. The demands were immediate and many. Without space to grieve, the sudden loss became a yawning gulf. Three years later, she booked a flight to a remote island off the coast of Australia with the intention of finally giving herself the time to mourn. In a shack on a pristine, rugged coast she often went days without seeing another person. There, she pondered the various ways in which cultures grieve and what rituals of her own might help to rebuild a life around the void of Tonys death. A spare and profoundly moving memoir that joins the classics of the genre, Memorial Days is a portrait of a larger-than-life man and a timeless love between souls that exquisitely captures the joy, agony, and mystery of life.
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JenniferEgnor
Memorial Days: A Memoir | Geraldine Brooks
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There is a chapter in which the author describes seeing a dead bird, and she comes back to its different phases of decomposition over the next few days. On the final day, she sees it and says: It should be a repulsive image, yet I find it consoling: this bird, who met its unforeseen ending with a meal half – consumed, now devoured in a riotous jitterbug. May my own death be just as sudden. Spare me the crematorium. Put me straight into the soil.⬇️

JenniferEgnor I want to be part of this dance. 3d
JenniferEgnor This can be a reality for your final disposition, if that is what you want. Terramation is the way. Check out these providers today: Earth Funeral, Recompose, Return Home. 🌱💀🌱 (edited) 3d
LapReader We are so separated from death now. I grew up on an Australian station where we had a ‘parlour‘ where it was cool and dark to store the old dead great, great, great great aunts until they could be picked up for their funerals. They were the first ones not to be buried on the farm. My Nan and mum still lay out bodies. I‘m not sure I‘ll learn. Death fascinates me though. 3d
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JenniferEgnor
Memorial Days: A Memoir | Geraldine Brooks
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Everybody wants to die naturally, you know.

But not so soon. Not so soon.

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JenniferEgnor
Memorial Days: A Memoir | Geraldine Brooks
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People die. On the descent to JFK airport one day after Tony‘s death, I stared from my airplane window at the closed-pressed houses of the Queens borough: I have this in common with every single one of all the thousands of people down there, living their varied, vivid lives. We might have not one other single thing in common, but we‘ve got this. We will all die. We will all grieve.

dabbe 💜 your new pic! 😍 4d
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Suelizbeth
Memorial Days: A Memoir | Geraldine Brooks
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Pickpick

I expected this book to be sad, and it was, but it was also honest and open and cathartic, both for the author and for the reader. Geraldine Brooks generously shares her experience of the loss of her husband and her delayed period and method of mourning. It‘s an inevitability that we will all experience in our own unique ways. This is a lovely book. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

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kspenmoll
Memorial Days: A Memoir | Geraldine Brooks
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Pickpick

Brooks‘ response to her husband‘s unexpected, untimely death is poignant, raw, searing,lamentable,heartrending. #storygraph #nonfiction

julieclair Oh my… this looks amazing. 1mo
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blurb
kspenmoll
Memorial Days: A Memoir | Geraldine Brooks
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It‘s Wednesday but…
1)
quiet silence in bed; rest
Sit on porch & listen to birds‘ song
Walk, in nature, in my community with other walkers
Face in sun
Garden
Family; sisters
Breezes

2) poetry, cozy mysteries, memoirs like Geraldine Brooks‘ Memorial Days

TheSpineView Thanks for playing! 💚🌳📖 1mo
48 likes1 comment
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kspenmoll
Memorial Days: A Memoir | Geraldine Brooks
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The purpose of Brooks‘ immersion in the raw nature of Flinders Island is to finally,after 4 years, release her howling grief at the sudden death of her husband. These geese = Tony.

https://australian.museum/learn/animals/birds/cape-barren-goose/

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blurb
kspenmoll
Memorial Days: A Memoir | Geraldine Brooks
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Tonight‘s hot cinnamon milk & a book.

Cupcake12 Enjoy x I love the smell of cinnamon 1mo
TheBookHippie ♥️ 1mo
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Sapphire
Memorial Days: A Memoir | Geraldine Brooks
Pickpick

Heartbreaking. Geraldine Brooks is one of my favorite authors and I met her once at a book festival, so this felt more personal.

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Suet624
Memorial Days: A Memoir | Geraldine Brooks
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Pickpick

While Brooks is writing her book Horse at home on the Vineyard she gets a call that her husband Tony Horwitz has died suddenly in DC. This book walks you through that time frame/experience and then intermingles her process of finally fully grieving three years later while staying in a remote location in Tasmania. In telling her story you meet a unique couple. A four star read.

kspenmoll This is in my TBR from my local Indie bookstore- I buy 1 book per month as a loyalty member & get 20% discount. I have not read it yet- now I must soon, maybe April! 2mo
Suet624 @kspenmoll it‘s a very quick read. 2mo
Jeg It‘s a keeper for me. I know I‘ll read it again sometime. 2mo
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Floresj
Memorial Days: A Memoir | Geraldine Brooks
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Pickpick

Though this book is centered on Brooks‘s processing the death of her husband, the aftermath and trying to grieve, she really gives the reader a guide of how to enjoy and savor the moments that one has now as we really don‘t know how long we all have to enjoy our relationships which make our lives worth living. I loved this.

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ChrisBohjalian
Memorial Days: A Memoir | Geraldine Brooks
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Yes, I loved MEMORIAL DAYS by Geraldine Brooks. You will, too.

kspenmoll I have it on hold for me at my local Indie store. Can‘t wait! 3mo
ChrisBohjalian @kspenmoll It‘s a treasure. 3mo
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Jeg
Memorial Days: A Memoir | Geraldine Brooks
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Pickpick

Got this yesterday, finished a minute ago. Her words and sentences flow and make it an easy read in that sense. However not an easy read emotionally for me. The last chapter I found very relatable. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.
I don‘t want to say anymore but I do recommend it especially if you are a fan of hers. And even if you haven‘t read anything of hers this might start you off.

Chrissyreadit Wow! I just read the synopsis- i did not realize she had been with Tony Horowitz- and i either did not know or forgot that he had died. They are both amazing writers. 3mo
Jeg @Chrissyreadit I didn‘t know who she was married to either. Might read something by him now. I think I knew her husband had died. This book will be a keeper for me. 3mo
Centique I havent read this one but i think she has become a must read author for me - stacking this for sure 😍 3mo
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