Songs For The Missing, the book

Stewart O'Nan has written another powerful book in his latest novel, Songs For The Missing. It is the story about Ed and Fran Larsen when they loose there 18 year old daughter, Kim, who comes up missing during the summer between High School and College.

It is a story about confusion and grief, hope and anguish, determination and helplessness, love and disillusionment.

The creative tension comes from the question of whether Kim is alive or dead, whether she will be found or remain lost, and how a family deals with its worst fears that a beloved daughter and sister is dead.

One of the predominant features of grieving for a child is the sense of helplessness. Parents are meant to nurture and protect and when they are unable to carry out this role and their child is dying or dead, the parent often becomes frantic, and the loss is unthinkable and at times unspeakable even though it is inevitable.

Psychotic symptoms of hallucinatory, and delusional experiences are common. The mind plays tricks to avoid the reality which the grieving person experiences as overwhelming and totally unacceptable. Often, the resistance to the inevitable takes the form of business and frantic activity as if the business will prevent the loss from happening or undo what has occurred.

The loss of a child in a situation where the occurrence is ambiguous such as a child running away, or being abducted adds the element of unreality to the loss because it is not clear what has occurred. Ed and Fran stay very busy searching and organizing searches for their daughter. They are angry with the police that they are not doing more even though the police expend tremendous resources in attempts to find Kim.

Grieving parents in this situation need a kind, attentive, supportive, but realistic sounding board. The grieving parents need a "reality check" someone who cares but will tell them the truth and help them gather information and interpret it correctly. False hope and reassurance should be avoided, but a positive attitude is helpful as well. Finding the balance between reality and hope is the key. One of my favorite buttons during my acute grieving for my two dead children was "Reality is when it happens to you."

Bad things happen. We see it on the news all the time, but they happen to other people not to me, not to us, and when it comes home, it is a shock. People in this situation need a shock absorber and that takes the form of a support system of realistic and kind people.

Songs For The Missing is a tough book to read. It is too long and I found myself skimming parts of it, but it is a good portrayal of grieving parents and a grieving sister. I recommend it.

This is article #2 in a series on Grieving Parents.