The epigraph firstly of Nicole Chung’s vivid memoir A Living Remedy features a line from Marie Howe’s poem “For Three Days”: “ . . . because even grief provides a living remedy.” As Chung immerses readers in her expertise of grief, her highly effective phrases compel us to observe her on a wonderful however troublesome journey of loss.
Chung was born prematurely to Korean dad and mom who felt they might not look after such a fragile child. She wrote about her adoption by a white couple, and her subsequent seek for her delivery household as she grew to become a mom herself, in her bestselling 2018 memoir, All You Can Ever Know. Now Chung continues her story, returning to the Oregon mountains of her childhood in the intervening time her beloved adoptive dad and mom’ well being started to fail.
Chung’s battle to be current for her dad and mom as a daughter, whereas additionally being a spouse and a mom in one other metropolis three thousand miles away, will probably be acquainted to many readers. When her father’s well being started its gradual downward spiral, he was nonetheless younger sufficient to hunt a greater job with higher well being assets however was stymied by his restricted schooling—and proud sufficient to withstand the federal government help Chung begged him to request. When he lastly did, he was denied, falling by the cracks of a damaged well being care system. By that point, his sickness had taken an irreversible toll. Chung’s grief and frustration over his dying have been fanned by the expensive miles between them, however she resolved to do higher by her widowed mom. However, Chung’s time together with her mom finally ran out as nicely, because the gathering storm of the COVID-19 pandemic unfold its personal model of ache and panic.
A Living Remedy makes this period of collective grief extra private, as Chung actually explores her childhood and the lives and deaths of her dad and mom. She provides these exhausting instances a goal, absorbing them with each fury and compassion, making them half of her personal legacy to cross alongside to her daughters. For her, that is certainly a dwelling treatment.
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