The Widower's Notebook by Jonathan Santlofer
Jonathan Santolofer's book, The Widower's Notebook, is a memoir. The author of The Death Artist and Anatomy of Fear did not write an instructional manual as to how to survive grief. It's a very personal account of the sudden death of his wife, Joy, and his own struggle with grief and his emotions around her death. Joy Santlofer was "only" scheduled for outpatient surgery on her leg, but a day later she was dying. What caused it is not the focus of the book, although it took her husband over a year to learn what the cause of death was. And, that's an unusual story in itself. But, at the time Joy was dying, her husband could only watch in panic as the paramedics worked on her, rushed her to the hospital, and then she was gone. Jonathan Santlofer needed comfort after she was gone, but he couldn't ask for it. There was "a stance I maintained for months, the strong man who needs no one." He and their daughter, Doria, were united in loss, but neither...