"It's Okay to Laugh" by Nora McInerny

I think it was Brooke who first introduced me to Nora McInerny (who also goes by Nora McInerny Purmort on Goodreads) and her podcast, "Terrible, Thanks for Asking." (ETA:  It was! -- in this post here, from early 2017.) 

I don't think it's giving anything away to tell you that, in the space of just a few months in 2014, when she was just 31 years old, McInerny lost her second baby (to miscarriage), her husband, Aaron (to brain cancer), and then her father, Steve (also to cancer). I vaguely remember reading Aaron's hilarious "Spiderman" obituary, which they wrote together as he went into hospice care, and which went viral on the Internet.

Earlier this year, I saw that she had a memoir coming out -- "No Happy Endings" -- and it put it on my bookstore wish list for when it became available in late March -- but then I learned she had also published a previous memoir in 2017:  "It's Okay to Laugh (Crying Is Cool Too)."

So I bought them both (of course!)  :)  and decided to read them in order. (And if it wasn't for the fact that I have a book club selection to get through before May 27th, I would have dived straight into "No Happy Endings" right after finishing this one.)  (McInerny actually has a THIRD book out now too,  although I haven't yet found it at the bookstore -- "The Hot Young Widows Club" -- which is also the name of a support community she created after her husband's death.)  I have yet to listen to TTFA (although it's in my podcast queue) but I am now following both her & TTFA on social media.

You don't have to have lost your husband (or your father -- or your baby, although that's probably where most of us here will find our stories intersect with Nora's) to appreciate this book.  Less publicized, and a surprise to me when I read it here, is that Nora's son Ralph, as well as the baby she miscarried, were the result of fertility treatments -- IUIs, with sperm banked by her husband before he began cancer treatments.  And if the grief & loss themes weren't enough for me to relate to, there's also the fact that she's from Minnesota  ;) the American state that's nearest & dearest to my heart. ;) 

Nora kept a blog during Aaron's illness (called "My Husband's Tumor" -- not available, at least not right now), and I wonder whether some of the chapters in this book were originally blog posts, or at least had their genesis there. The book covers Nora's youth, family, marriage, motherhood and bereavement, although not necessarily in any particular order. The chapters jump back & forth & around in time. This did not detract from my enjoyment of the book, even though I sometimes tend to be a bit OCD about these things. ;) 

And yes, I enjoyed this book -- even though "enjoy" might seem a weird thing to say about a book that's mostly about cancer, grief and bereavement. I did laugh, and I did cry.  My copy is full of yellow sticky notes. The first thing I read that had me fumbling for kleenex was this passage on page 21: 

I can never say it, I can barely even think it, but I know that I am crying because I am afraid that when Aaron is gone, there will still be parts of him I do not know, little things like this that he forgot to share with me. I'd felt that from the moment I met him, before we knew he was sick, but I feel it more urgently now;  like I want to just stick a little USB drive into his arm and download everything about him.

The book's title reminded me of the little speech we used to give to open each meeting of the perinatal bereavement group dh & I ran for 10 years. "It's okay to cry -- that's why there's kleenex o the table," we'd say. "It's okay to laugh too." (And we did laugh, although much of our humour was pretty black & would probably have shocked some of our family members & friends.)  And yes, I laughed as often as I cried while reading this book too.

I loved it. I gave this book four stars on Goodreads, and am considering whether it should actually be changed to 5. :) 

If you've never heard of Nora, I highly recommend her recent TEDTalk about grief as a starting point. :) 

This was book #13 that I have read in 2019 to date, bringing me to 54% of my 2019 Goodreads Reading Challenge goal of 24 books.  I am (for the moment, anyway...!) 5 (!!) books ahead of schedule to meet my goal. :)