My Father’s Wake – A Review

But we mortals remain, struggling within ourselves, generation to generation, to answer the same questions; how to live, how to love, and how to die. The wound we bear in grief is the same wound we bear in being human.
Kevin Toolis

Why A Book Review?

I was flattered when asked to review Kevin Toolis’ My Father’s Wake for its American release. I knew only that the book was about grief and the way the Irish deal with it. As a combat veteran of the worst Grief can throw at you, and having spent a fair amount of time in Ireland, why would I say no? It seemed like a bizarrely perfect fit. So without knowing who Toolis was, or much about the book, I agreed.

Boring but necessary disclaimer: I’ve received no compensation for this review. Opinions are my own, which regular readers of this blog know I have no shortage of. 

Because it Matters.

The evening I received my review copy, I settled in to see what this was all about. I think I must have been expecting something poignant yet also lighthearted. The kind of Irish Wake I’ve seen in the movies. You know, the kind staring Gerard Butler. Page one. As Toolis describes, in graphic detail, some of his father’s last moments, I instantly flashed back to watching Dan die. OHMYGODOHMYGODOHMYGOD, please don’t let this trigger a PTSD anxiety attack. I’m alone in a hotel room in Spain and CANNOT deal with that right now.

“Why would you send this to me? Life is really good right now! I don’t want to remember this!” I shouted at the universe as my iPad went flying off the bed. “Damn it!” A minute later I got up to figure out where the iPad landed and took a deep breath. It was then I heard the answer, loud and clear. “Because you’re ready, Lisa. Because it matters.” And the universe was right. She is always right.

The Western Death Machine

A year ago this would have tipped over my apple cart, and I wouldn’t have made it past the first page. And that would have been an unfortunate loss. I made it through. Not gonna lie, that surprised me a bit, and made me realize how far I’ve come. I did have to concentrate on my breathing a few times since I’d find myself holding my breath or starting to hyperventilate depending on the topic. (FYI, if you’re squeamish you’ll want to skip over the parts about post-mortems.) I bawled my eyes out. Ironically, it was my reaction that Toolis writes about when he describes the effects of the Western Death Machine and our inability to accept Death as part of life.

Once I got past that first shock to my system, I was able to fall into the lyrical style I’ve found common in Irish writers. (They must all be born poets and musicians, further proof the universe loves the Irish more.) There on the shore of Achill Island, I could see and hear and smell the ocean and the unmistakable scent of a turf fire burning in the fireplace. Sonny was so familiar, I was convinced that somewhere on my travels, I must have met him in an Irish pub. I stood with Toolis, walking alongside him in his grief journey, looking over his shoulder at all it’s beautiful and horrifically ugly bits.

Our Grief Phobic Society

While I chose to dive into Grief analysis after losing Dan, Toolis grabbed a front row seat to Death itself. His role as a journalist had him bearing witness to life’s final moments in all its gruesome forms: war, famine, plague, terrorism, and murder. His search to understand his mortality took him from his father’s wake to standing vigil for humanity.

I found myself agreeing with him on many things, highlighting whole passages I wanted to come back to and read again. I’ve blogged for the last year-and-a-half about our grief phobic society and how detrimental it is to the grieving. I’ve written that acknowledging our mortality isn’t morbid at all, but something we can use to spur us to live while we’re still alive. Live Now, remember? Death is a side effect of being alive. And if you live long enough, you’ll lose someone you love. Denying this fact doesn’t make it less true, only more painful.

The Irish Wake

Toolis uses his own story to demonstrate how the Irish face death. He postulates that the process of the Irish Wake helps us to accept both that our loved ones are gone and the inevitability of our own mortality. Perhaps the ritual of it all provides comfort and closure.

Our weakness with death in the West stems from our very denial…we adorn our lapels with coloured ribbons and our wrists with armbands, though oddly we never visit the dying, go see the dead or attend their funerals. And death is something we still never, ever want to talk about.

On the island, no one writes about death, but they do go to funerals and talk about the dead and visit the dying, all the time. Death is an everyday occurrence, nothing special, and it is this scale by which any dying is judged.

Ritual By Instinct

Looking back, I realize that Dan and I did instinctively keep some of these rituals. Maybe there is something to be said for genetic memory. He didn’t want to die in a hospital. I became his bean chabrach, his midwife of death, and made sure things happened the way he wanted. In the weeks leading up to his death, we had a string of visitors coming and going to say their good-byes. And that last night our family was there to sit vigil. There was no priest, but at the very end, he was with his family. (Someday maybe I’ll tell you all the story about us hanging out with Dead Dan for hours and hours waiting for the funeral home to come and get him. It’s a tragically hilarious story.)

All the things that transpired seem to follow Toolis’ formula. Only a few things were missing, my awareness of all these rituals, my role in them, and any acceptance of his death. Western Death Machine: 1, Lisa: 0. You know how the rest of that story goes.

Don’t Read This Book

Who shouldn’t read this book: those drowning in grief that’s fresh, especially if you lost your loved one to cancer like Toolis’ father and brother or my Dan. Toolis is a journalist, and his chronicles of his death hunting are detailed and graphic. Almost brutally so. I consider myself in a really good place, but struggled with some of the descriptions. One of my pet peeves is how misused trigger warning is these days, but OMG TRIGGER WARNING! I wish I’d have read it a year or two before Dan got sick, I think it would have helped.  When you’re able to get more comfortable with your grief you may find it as insightful as I did. But for right now, it’s probably too soon.

Having said all that, I did find that short breaks were all I needed to continue. In a bizarre way, tagging along on his journey was cathartic in it’s awfulness. What was unexpected, was Toolis walking alongside me, as I retraced my steps through the worst moments of my life. I was able to step outside my natural instinct to repress the memories and actually look at them, acknowledge them, and maybe get closer to accepting them.

Read This Book

But here’s a list of those individuals who I think should read this book immediately:

1. Medical and Nursing School students. This should be required reading. Death does not equal failure. Death is inevitable. Your patient dying miserably after you continue to prescribe treatments you know will not work is the failure.
2. Medical and Nursing professionals already in practice. Pre-order it immediately and send me your book report.
3. Hospice and palliative care workers and volunteers, although you know better than most that death with dignity and grace is what we all deserve.
4. Grief counselors.
5. Those in the funeral industry. Don’t worry, Irish Wake’s won’t cut into your profits. In fact, helping people deal with this process may be a way to set yourself apart from your competitors.
6. Those who know they are going to die and want to do it on their terms.
7. Anyone who fears death.
8. Those who want to help the grieving.
9. People who are alive.
10. You.

Dear Kevin,

Thank you for sharing your grief journey so authentically, for inviting us to walk it with you, and for reminding us to take the weight.

XOXO,
The Wandering Widow
Live Now. Dream Big. Love Fierce.

My Father’s Wake releases in the US on February 27th. You can pre-order it on Amazon.