Precious Dreams & Living Nightmares

 

This is the week when the book documenting my first year of grief goes live, and it is a bittersweet experience. As those few hardy individuals who follow this occasional blog will know, It takes the form of transcriptions of my thoughts and feelings - originally set down on my phone's voice recorder - throughout those first awful twelve months, accompanied by a commentary of sorts, observations written with the hindsight afforded by revisiting the recordings as that first year drew to a close. What it has become is the memoir that I never dreamed I would have to write.

 It was never meant for public consumption but rather formed part of my ongoing therapy, and as such is about as raw and honest an account as you could ever hope to find. It pulls no punches, and tears my soul each time I read it back. Yet I made the decision to publish for three reasons: 

Firstly, many of the books on grief that I read throughout this period (and there were plenty) felt somewhat sanitised, 'tidied up' for publication. I understand why this should be, but I have tried to avoid that. If you are going through those first stages of the grieving process yourself, or are supporting someone who is, then you don't want a sugar-coated account; you need to know that what you are feeling is shared by those who are in the same terrible position, and to be reassured that, contrary to what you might believe, you are NOT going mad. So it is all in there, with no screening, no concession to niceties, no veering away from the harsh reality of loss... I tell it how it is (or has been for me), and make no apology for baring my soul to the reader, for to do otherwise would be a denial of my lived experience of the trauma of grief, and that would be of no help to anyone. It is also the reason why I chose to publish under my own name, Kevin Burke - the book is far too personal a work to hide behind a pseudonym.

Secondly, it has been read by several people who are connected with the provision of mental health services, and specifically bereavement support (one of whom was kind enough to write the testimonial 'blurb' for the book) who all agreed that it could be of enormous help to those who are travelling a similar road. As I say in the book, everyone's experience of grief is unique to them, so not everything will strike a chord, but I believe there is enough commonality among the grieving community for much of what I have recorded to resonate... and if it helps just one person to feel more understood and less alone,  then it will have been a worthwhile exercise.

And lastly, I am putting it out there so that my friends and family have a better understanding of how I have actually been over these last two years, rather than what I've told them. It will come as a shock to many, but just getting it all out in the open will have lifted a tremendous weight from my shoulders... and that in itself has got to be a good thing. There's only so much pretending everything is fine that you can do...

Getting the book out there has been a massive learning curve, as I opted for self-publishing because I wanted it out quickly, not sitting in a publisher's slush pile for years on end, so after tearing my hair out for several weeks, I find I'm pretty pleased with the final result... in fact for a first attempt at this it is little short of miraculous! 

Remembering how my concentration suffered in those first months of grief, I deliberately went for an easy to read format with short chapters and well-defined paragraphs, though I didn't have quite so much control over the formatting of the ebook version, as it needs to adapt to whatever device you may be reading it on... so while I've checked it again and again, I apologise if the occasional glitch creeps in. As I say, I'm new to all this!

So now it's out in the wild and you can judge for yourself. I encourage everyone to read the sample piece, which explains a lot, and if you then decide you'd like to go on and buy the book, that would be lovely. (I include a link below.) 

And if you are reading it because you yourself are grieving, then, as I say in the book, I hope it provides some small scraps of comfort as you try to navigate your way through the living nightmare that we call bereavement.

Find Precious Dreams and Living Nightmares on Amazon