Beside Manner: Facing Grief

I hate to admit this, but I go through periods of heavy reading and then not reading at all. Right now, I'm resting in that lull. Much of that is because 2016 has uprooted my life in ways I couldn't imagine. And it's hard to move past that.

Which is how On Grief and Grieving landed on my makeshift bedside. The book is meant to help me heal, but I can't get past the first few pages. I guess that's the reality of grief: It's there by your side every single day, but you learn to avoid it. Until you can't avoid it anymore.

I could chuck the book and jump to the next one on my list (The Dark Lady of DNA). But there's no benefit in that. So take this "Bedside Manner" column as a promise that I'll follow through – eventually, at some point.

Last Book I Read:
What Are You Doing Here?: A Black Woman's Life and Liberation in Heavy Metal by Laina Dawes (Bazillion Points, 224 pp., $16.95)

Racism, sexism, and misogyny run rampant in heavy metal – in its lyrics, in its attitude, in the behaviors of its faithful. You're a person of color into metal? You don't belong. You're a woman into metal? You don't belong, either. And as music journalist Laina Dawes writes in What Are You Doing Here?, if you're a Black woman into the scene, you're doubly oppressed. What Are You Doing Here? is a candid look into the history of Black women in metal – and Dawes' love for a genre that's turned its back on her and other women of color. Unfortunately, Dawes' writing is lackluster and protracted, which made it hard to become fully absorbed in the book. But the content – and the chance to better understand an experience my privileged cisgender self would never endure – kept me interested enough to finish.

Book I'm Currently Reading:
On Grief and Grieving: Finding the Meaning of Grief Through the Five Stages of Loss by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross and David Kessler (Scribner, 272 pp., $16)

My father, Max, passed away in February due to diabetes-related health complications. He was sick for months, in and out of the hospital. All that time, I found myself bracing for that call, but was nowhere near ready when it came. His passing devastated my sisters and me. And since then, I've carried the weight of regret and unspoken words, of memories and lost futures. Mostly, though, I walk around with an overwhelming fear of death and of leaving people behind. Which brought me to Elisabeth Kübler-Ross and David Kessler's On Grief and Grieving. A counselor recommended the book as a way to confront my anxiety and feel some sense of peace through all the chaos. So far, it's helping. I'm coming to understand the grieving process intellectually – and that allows me to ground myself emotionally. But I'll be honest: I haven't gotten far into the book. While On Grief and Grieving is written with compassion and care, it's also heavy, much like grief itself. And both will take time to wade through.

Book I Plan to Read Next:
Rosalind Franklin: The Dark Lady of DNA by Brenda Maddox (Harper Perennial, 416 pp., $15.99)

I bought Brenda Maddox's biography of Rosalind Franklin a few years ago at a museum gift shop in Washington, D.C. I hadn't heard of the book – or of Franklin – before that point, so I picked up The Dark Lady of DNA out of pure and unfamiliar interest. And the little I read sold me. Franklin was a pioneer of DNA research. Her work on the X-ray diffraction images of DNA led to the discovery of the DNA double helix. But her contributions were largely ignored during her lifetime. She only became recognized for her groundbreaking work after she died in 1958. I am always fascinated by the intersection of science and gender, as well as race, which put Dark Lady in my wheelhouse. I just hope it captivates me the way I expect it will.

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Annamarya Scaccia is the news intern at The Austin Chronicle.