by Beth Greenfield, $24; Harmony Books; 276 pages
How would it feel to lose your little brother and your best friend in the snap of an instant? In a car crash—in which you are a passenger? And you're only 12? How long does the grieving process take to resolve and what scars does it leave?
In this memoir Beth Greenfield tells you exactly what it's like, in honest, excruciating detail that is both wise and elegantly crafted. She lived it. And she honors her brother Adam's short life and that of her friend Kristin. ( The title, Ten Minutes from Home, refers to the point, a short distance from home, where the family and Greenfield's friend Kristen were when tragedy struck as they returned from Beth's ballet recital. )
Aided by a handwritten account she put together in the year or so after the accident, and several writing exercises penned over the years as an adult, plus years of therapy, Greenfield finally put it all in book form to tell this heartbreaking story. ( It would have been interesting to read some of her 12-year-old ruminations in juxtaposition to her adult perspective. )
She depicts her parents' grief as well and how delicately they all tiptoed around their individual and collective anguish. For those of us who have been through such a devastating loss, particularly if at a young age, this story may be too painfully familiar. For those of us who have been spared such a wrenching rift in our lives, there is curiosity, wonder, and beauty in walking at Greenfield's side as she pulls us along through her story. And also, perhaps, comfort in knowing we can survive such devastation, though it may take a long, long time to pull ourselves together again.
She visits her father for the first time in the ICU after the accident, and reaches for his hand: "It felt warm to the touch, and so weak in a way I would have never imagined him capable of being, and when I stroked it with my own I saw tears run down his cheeks. It terrified me."
Greenfield returns to her home for the first time ( her parents still in the hospital ) . She experiences a shock when she opens the refrigerator and spots a half-eaten ice pop that her brother Adam had left. "I reached down and touched it lightly, and thought of eating it, of putting my mouth on the small bite mark that he had left behind, of getting just a little bit of Adam inside of me." She changes her mind, thinking instead it would be better to save it for a scientist, who could collect "… the Adam cells that still clung to the frozen juice, put them in a Petri dish and bring him back."
This kind of aching detail infuses the memoir with the beauty of loss and the strains of the heart to capture the life that has been lost. You might shed a tear, or feel a few moments of sadness reading Greenfield's book. But you will also experience a sense of what love and family mean, and how we struggle to help each other through very tough times.
