The way the author captures grief (not as a pathology, but as a form of learning, unlearning, and continuing to love) is so raw and honest it almost feels invasive to read. The line "grief is a terrible kind of learning" hit me like a freight train. There's such a deep humanity here, and also a quiet indictment of our culture's need to classify, contain, and "resolve" grief like it's a software bug. We talk a lot about resilience, but rarely about the kind that means simply keeping going while carrying a pain that doesn't lessen, only changes shape.

Both Bess and Jake's writing is all very much like this. "Almost feels invasive" is certainly how it felt reading their posts during Jake's illness.