This book explores how the bereaved family of a survivor of suicide learns to deal with what has happened and begin the process of healing as they restart their lives and find hope and joy again.

After her mother, gradually losing ground against terminal cancer, chooses to take her life and end her suffering, author Chiang Pei-Chin sinks into a morass of shame, guilt, and grief. She turns to her love of writing for solace, to extirpate her deep-set pain, and to let healing begin; the remaining scars testifying to that dark page in her life. In this book in three parts, the first, titled “Things”, centers on the physical remainders of her mother’s life – her organ donor card, insurance policy, prepaid cell phone card, a prized jade pendant, and other items now all tucked safely away in a mini storage unit. While all part of her mother’s coherent being in life, they now exist as dispersed, disjointed pieces of her former existence.

Next, “Emotions” dives into current theory on psychological well-being. She first plumbs the scholarly consensus regarding strategies both for resolving the roots of pain and sadness and for navigating one’s way back to psychological health. Then, the author documents heartfelt discussions with others who, like her, have lost family members to suicide to explore how their path to reassemble the pieces of their lives and continue moving forward overlaps with and, potentially, strays from academic theory. “Life” returns the narrative to the author’s own story, discussing her journey of healing in overseas travel, author-in-residence experiences, and creative writing ; in encounters with new people, things and experiences ; and in reflections on life, discovering in the process that love resides in the acknowledgment and acceptance of pain.

This book explores the physical, psychological, and practical shrapnel taken by those experiencing the suicide of a loved one. The author’s lived experience, told in a refined and emotive writing style honed through her practiced, reporter’s mind, is much more than an autobiographical missive ; it offers supportive companionship and comfort on the reader’s personal journey to healing. The narrative in this book takes multiple perspectives to show those left behind a potential way forward to coexist with their pain and restart their lives.