In his latest offering author Brilliant Pongo shares his journey with grief in a book he has titled “Grief Sucks, But Hope Again ; a memoir of pain and loss”
Brill Pongo, who is a prolific author with more than 10 publications which include Christian books and self-help books said after the death of his wife he felt he had to share his experiences with grief.
“I wrote this book for two main reasons, firstly it is my hope that as I share my story someone out there will feel uplifted. Secondly, I did this as a way to heal myself from grief and learn to live with it.”
In the last couple of years, the grief memoir has become a genre of its own, a form of public mourning and sometimes of self-therapy, where the bereaved search for a meaning from the confusion and mind numbing pain that comes with the death of a loved one.
When one loses a loved one be it wife, mother, father, child or sibling, there comes with it an intense type of grief that has power to turn your world upside down. The death of a loved one resists meaning and it plays havoc with the order and chronology of language. How can words give shape to shapelessness or articulate silence and dissolution? As Emily Dickinson said: “Abyss has no biographer.”
Indeed, there are no words that can describe grief caused by the loss of a loved one.
Nonetheless, all one can do is to share their experiences with grief as Brill Pongo has done in this memoir ‘Grief Sucks’
The book has 18 chapters with a range of topics. Brill Pongo, narrates his experience with grief through poems that he penned during his low moments of grieving and intricately weaves together the poem to the story and experience that he was going through at that particular moment.
He talks about how he dealt with some very difficult situations, during his grieving.
He questions the stages of grief as set out by psychologist. He asks rhetorically whether the stages of grief relate or not to lived experiences.
He also ventures to explore cultural differences that affect the way people mourn and grieve.
And he touches on some difficulties faced by migrants who live in the diaspora and challenges of deciding where to bury a loved one.
He adds a personal touch to all this by sharing his personal experiences about family fallouts, strained relationships with his in-laws and how cultural differences can sometimes be abused and used vindictively. In this book Brill Pongo also offers insights on how friends can help someone who is grieving.
Overall it is an interesting and amazing read. Once again Brill Pongo has shown great prowess in his ability to tell a reverting story and teach at the same time.
A worthy read that I would highly recommend. The book is available on multiple online platforms such as Amazon, Waterstones, bookdepository, barnesandnoble, and Blackwells book store.
https://www.waterstones.com/book/grief-sucks-but-hope-again/brill-pongo/9781782229346
https://blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/product/9781782229346
https://www.bookdepository.com/Grief-Sucks-But-Hope-Again-Brill-Pongo/9781782229346
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/grief-sucks-but-hope-again-brill-pongo/1141672615?ean=9781782229346
