You’re So Strong: On Grief and Letting Go of My Favorite Compliment Paperback

“You’re doing so well,” they tell you. “You’re so strong.”

Meanwhile, you’re standing in the middle of your living room, staring at a mountain of grown-man Legos, wondering if it’s disrespectful to donate them or insane to keep them.

You’re on hold with AT&T for the third time this week, trying to explain to a stranger that the account holder doesn’t need unlimited data anymore because he’s dead. You are holding it together on the outside, but on the inside, you are navigating a map that no one gave you, for a terrain you never wanted to visit.

Leslie Harter-Berg knows too well the absurdity of the “admin of death”–the paperwork, the passwords, the phone calls that punctuate the grief. She knows what it’s like to have a life that was “pretty darn good” implode into a reality of solo parenting and widowhood at the age of thirty. She knows exactly what it feels like to have to do school drop-off when simply getting out of bed seems insurmountable.

In this relatable, poignant, and funny memoir-meets-grief-guide, Leslie shares her many attempts at conquering the stages of grief and her ultimate acceptance that no one is actually grading her in Coping 101. In this deeply honest account of life after loss, Leslie learns the hard way that surviving is often more profound and beautiful than thriving.

If you’re exhausted by the well-meaning but empty promises that this is a “blessing in disguise,” that “now you have a guardian angel” or “everything happens for a reason,” come sit next to Leslie as she discovers that there’s not a magic prayer for moving on, and that it’s time to lay down the mantle of “doing grief right.”