I read the quote at the beginning of the novel and wondered if I would be able to handle this book. I also wondered if this book was written for me.

Your absence has gone through me

Like thread through a needle,

Everything I do is stitched with its color.

—–W. S. Merwin

Annie Brown, a larger than life personality with her big laugh and huge presence, is a mother of four young children, a loving wife, and a remarkable friend. In short, she is like a sun around whom her family and friend revolve. When Annie suddenly dies due to an aneurysm, the world around her goes off kilter. Her husband Bill Brown does not know how to continue living and caring for their four children, Ali, their oldest has to grow up overnight to care for her siblings, and Annie’s best friend Annemarie does not know how to stay sober without Annie’s firm but loving presence. The story is about a bereaved family’s journey to learn to live with the hole in their lives but that hole is filled with the presence of Annie Brown in their memories. The plot seems simplistic. It is not the plot that carries the story forward, it is the emotion. It is the characters, and realism portrayed in the story. This book was sad and triggering. I often felt engulfed by grief as I read on but I could not stop reading about the lives of Annie Brown’s children, her husband, Bill, and her best friend Annemarie after Annie’s unexpected death. Anna Quindlen is a masterful and nuanced storyteller who can put to words the subtlest human emotions and can bring her stories to life. So much so that I became a part of the Brown family experiencing their loss and their sorrow at losing their mother and wife. I felt this book in my heart more than simply reading it.

And the quote is so apt! I am indeed colored by the absence of my parents. When they were alive, there was thousands of miles between us. We were together once a year for a few weeks. The rest of the times there were phone calls and regular wsapp messages. But now everything I do has traces of their absence. I wonder if their energy is what made tonight’s sunset extra spectacular, or the daffodils are more vibrant because they are now fortified with their hue. It is strange, this absence, this life in my memories, in my actions, in the lense through which I see the world. This absence that stitches colors to my tapestry of life.