Surviving Laurel Richardson’s Whirlwinds: “Being With” Loss and Grief

Abstract

This essay responds to Laurel Richardson’s book, A Story of a Marriage through Dementia and Beyond: Love in a Whirlwind, and to her poetry, “For Better or Worse,” which is included in this issue of International Review of Qualitative Research. The author describes how she is affected by the poetic and story forms of telling. Through reading and rereading, analyzing and interpreting these texts, she notes parallels between her and Laurel's experiences of loss and how they story their sorrow. Laurel’s descriptions resonate with her, reminding her of her own grief and providing a feeling of companionship--that we are all in this together. She suggests that reading and writing about loss as well as “being with” others in their sorrows can move us to incorporate grief and suffering into our lives without falling into an abyss of sadness, depression, and meaninglessness.