It was insightful to Susan Lieu’s journey through such enduring grief as the sudden, accidental death of her mother. She spends years of her life grasping for explanations, justice, and even simply the space to feel everything she has to feel for her mother.
Through her story, she addresses societal and cultural issues regarding views on women, food and weight gain, and how people are taught to deal with their emotions. Her mother dies due to a botched tummy tuck, an attempt to get to a perceived ‘ideal’ weight, and following this, while discussion of her mother and what happened to her become taboo by her family, they feel no similar reticence about continuing to criticize each other’s weight or eating habits. The exploration of how this societal obsession with weight contributed to the circumstances of Lieu’s mother’s death and how its pervasiveness kept even a family suffering such a loss from questioning was poignant.
I also, as a very non-spiritual person, found it interesting to see how religion and spiritual beliefs played various roles in Lieu’s processing of her grief. She goes through a period where it is a detrimental, predatory presence in her life. She is drawn into a cult to which she gives much of her money and for which alters her educational path. She also has experiences with psychics that leave her dissatisfied and ripped off. But her spiritual experiences also help her find more comfort and acceptance of her mother’s passing, especially later in life. I found it interesting to see how the belief that her mother’s spirit was not only lingering but could possess or speak through living people affected Lieu’s journey.
Through her story, she addresses societal and cultural issues regarding views on women, food and weight gain, and how people are taught to deal with their emotions. Her mother dies due to a botched tummy tuck, an attempt to get to a perceived ‘ideal’ weight, and following this, while discussion of her mother and what happened to her become taboo by her family, they feel no similar reticence about continuing to criticize each other’s weight or eating habits. The exploration of how this societal obsession with weight contributed to the circumstances of Lieu’s mother’s death and how its pervasiveness kept even a family suffering such a loss from questioning was poignant.
I also, as a very non-spiritual person, found it interesting to see how religion and spiritual beliefs played various roles in Lieu’s processing of her grief. She goes through a period where it is a detrimental, predatory presence in her life. She is drawn into a cult to which she gives much of her money and for which alters her educational path. She also has experiences with psychics that leave her dissatisfied and ripped off. But her spiritual experiences also help her find more comfort and acceptance of her mother’s passing, especially later in life. I found it interesting to see how the belief that her mother’s spirit was not only lingering but could possess or speak through living people affected Lieu’s journey.