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Notes for the Everlost: A Field Guide to Grief
Part memoir, part handbook for the heartbroken, this powerful, unsparing account of losing a premature baby will speak to all who have been bereaved and are grieving, and offers inspiration on moving forward, gently integrating the loss into life.
When Kate Inglis’s twin boys were born prematurely, one survived and the other did not. This is the powerful, unsparing account of her experience, her bereavement, and ultimately how she was able to move forward and help other parents who had experienced such profound loss. Inglis’s story is a springboard that can help other bereaved parents reflect on key aspects of the experience, such as emotional survival in the first year after loss; dealing with family, friends, and bystanders post-loss; the unique female state post-bereavement of shame and sorrow at “failing,” or somehow not fulfilling your role; the importance of community; recognizing society’s inability to deal with grief and loss; how loss breeds compassion; coping with anniversaries; and beginning the work of “integration” (as opposed to “healing”).
When Kate Inglis’s twin boys were born prematurely, one survived and the other did not. This is the powerful, unsparing account of her experience, her bereavement, and ultimately how she was able to move forward and help other parents who had experienced such profound loss. Inglis’s story is a springboard that can help other bereaved parents reflect on key aspects of the experience, such as emotional survival in the first year after loss; dealing with family, friends, and bystanders post-loss; the unique female state post-bereavement of shame and sorrow at “failing,” or somehow not fulfilling your role; the importance of community; recognizing society’s inability to deal with grief and loss; how loss breeds compassion; coping with anniversaries; and beginning the work of “integration” (as opposed to “healing”).
208 pages, Kindle Edition
Published March 27, 2018
26 people are currently reading
334 people want to read
About the author
Kate Inglis
6 books53 followersKate Inglis is an award-winning author who writes books about pirates and giants and mermaids and all the stars and all the ways we love each other. Most recently, frogs in a teeny-tiny folk band. Sometimes for kids and sometimes grown-ups, Kate’s novels, non-fiction, and poetry are infused with the salt, woodsmoke, and fresh air of the North Atlantic coast.
“Her writing style is taut, crisp and, in places, overpoweringly beautiful. Inglis conveys wisdom and deep emotion at the same time.” —CM Magazine
“Notes for the Everlost is the most beautifully written book I have read in ages. This book is great company for terrible times.” —Elizabeth McCracken, author of Thunderstruck & Other Stories
“Kate Inglis has a humor akin to Roald Dahl at his most satirically anti-establishment, and evocative language that echoes Goldman’s The Princess Bride.” — Lois Rubin Gross
“Kate Inglis is a wise, flexible, and ultimately hopeful guide through the inhospitable country of mourning. She is also fierce—fiercely angry, fiercely funny and, most of all, fiercely loving.” —Katherine Ashenburg, author of The Mourner’s Dance
“Notes for the Everlost is a delicate, playful handbook for people who feel they might disappear into grief forever. Valuable to anyone facing bereavement or supporting a loved one through it.” —Times Literary Supplement
“Her writing style is taut, crisp and, in places, overpoweringly beautiful. Inglis conveys wisdom and deep emotion at the same time.” —CM Magazine
“Notes for the Everlost is the most beautifully written book I have read in ages. This book is great company for terrible times.” —Elizabeth McCracken, author of Thunderstruck & Other Stories
“Kate Inglis has a humor akin to Roald Dahl at his most satirically anti-establishment, and evocative language that echoes Goldman’s The Princess Bride.” — Lois Rubin Gross
“Kate Inglis is a wise, flexible, and ultimately hopeful guide through the inhospitable country of mourning. She is also fierce—fiercely angry, fiercely funny and, most of all, fiercely loving.” —Katherine Ashenburg, author of The Mourner’s Dance
“Notes for the Everlost is a delicate, playful handbook for people who feel they might disappear into grief forever. Valuable to anyone facing bereavement or supporting a loved one through it.” —Times Literary Supplement
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 55 reviews
March 19, 2019
(3.75) Kate Inglis, a Nova Scotian photographer and children’s author, has written this delicate, playful handbook – something between a bereavement memoir and a self-help guide – for people who feel they might disappear into grief for ever. In 2007, Inglis’s identical twin sons were born premature, at twenty-seven weeks. Ben lived but Liam died. Every milestone in Ben’s life would serve as a reminder of the brother who should have been growing up alongside him. The unfairness was particularly keen on the day she returned to hospital for two appointments: Ben’s check-up and a report on Liam’s autopsy. Unable to sustain the eye-popping freshness of the prose in the introduction, Inglis resorts to some clichés in what follows. “Shit” is a favourite word, bandied about alongside quirky names ‒ like “The Bootstraps Barbershop Chorus,” a term for bystanders who offer unsolicited advice ‒ as proof that she’s telling it like it is. This kooky, candid book will be valuable to anyone facing bereavement or supporting a loved one through it.
(My full review is in the March 15th issue of the Times Literary Supplement. An excerpt is available here.)
Some favorite lines:
“Your sacred and lifelong dialogue with death is yours distinctly.”
“I appreciate how art rearranges the impossible into a shape we can absorb.”
“Loss makes compassion by connecting us to the human experience. With pain, with almost unbearable hurt. But nonetheless, we are connected. We are awake. First, we harden up—so bitter, so upset—but then we soften, softer, softer, and softer still until we truly understand why we are here. To share love. To share understanding. None of us have the time for anything less.”
(My full review is in the March 15th issue of the Times Literary Supplement. An excerpt is available here.)
Some favorite lines:
“Your sacred and lifelong dialogue with death is yours distinctly.”
“I appreciate how art rearranges the impossible into a shape we can absorb.”
“Loss makes compassion by connecting us to the human experience. With pain, with almost unbearable hurt. But nonetheless, we are connected. We are awake. First, we harden up—so bitter, so upset—but then we soften, softer, softer, and softer still until we truly understand why we are here. To share love. To share understanding. None of us have the time for anything less.”
March 12, 2018
Notes for the Everlost: A Field Guide to Grief is what you will want to read if you have lost a child, if you know someone who has lost a child, or . . . if you’re a human being. (I asked a friend of mine to read it. She is not a mother whose child has died, but she reported that she could not put the book down.) During various challenging stages of my life, I have reached for books to give me insight and perspective. Most of the time these books have annoyed me because of their preachy tone or oversimplification of life. Can’t get your baby to sleep through the night? Just let him cry, or don’t, or let him cry in certain increments. Trouble with your toddler? Just use a sticker chart. Struggles in your marriage? Just have weekly date nights. Kate Inglis has somehow written a book about how to navigate the most tragic, impossible situation, and she has done it without pissing me off.
Four years ago, my four-month-old daughter died of SIDS. My husband, our sons, and I were plunged into a nightmare. Author Kate Inglis knows. Her baby died, too. In her book, Inglis speaks to us. I have read many accounts of grief but none written by an author who so intimately connects with her readers. On comparing types of loss, she writes, “None of it is better or worse. It's all shattering reverence for you.” Notes for the Everlost reveals how you can be in one of the darkest, rawest, most jagged places a human can be–and how you can still find some glimmer of light, some smoothness there. Inglis's fierce empathy is woven throughout her story. How to mourn? Inglis says it depends:
With vulnerability and stunning articulateness, Inglis sculpts a work of truth and beauty. Her message is one of compassion. How can I be gentle with myself even though I think I should feel better by now? How can I navigate a reality in which I will see reminders every day, where triggers can send me into a panic attack, where time makes no sense? Most importantly, Inglis is unsentimentally human–she reveals her struggle, her anger, her dark sense of humor (a key component for bereaved parents). And finally her ability to forgive–forgiving those who didn’t understand her and ultimately, forgiving herself for being someone who could not protect her child from death.
Four years ago, my four-month-old daughter died of SIDS. My husband, our sons, and I were plunged into a nightmare. Author Kate Inglis knows. Her baby died, too. In her book, Inglis speaks to us. I have read many accounts of grief but none written by an author who so intimately connects with her readers. On comparing types of loss, she writes, “None of it is better or worse. It's all shattering reverence for you.” Notes for the Everlost reveals how you can be in one of the darkest, rawest, most jagged places a human can be–and how you can still find some glimmer of light, some smoothness there. Inglis's fierce empathy is woven throughout her story. How to mourn? Inglis says it depends:
Make a pyre of expectations. Speak what feels right to speak. Be quiet when you need to be quiet. Say you're fine when you're not in the mood to talk about why you're not fine. Do what you're compelled to do. Make someone uncomfortable. You have enough to deal with without worrying what people think of your performance. You have death to deal with, and death has to deal with you, and that is enough.
With vulnerability and stunning articulateness, Inglis sculpts a work of truth and beauty. Her message is one of compassion. How can I be gentle with myself even though I think I should feel better by now? How can I navigate a reality in which I will see reminders every day, where triggers can send me into a panic attack, where time makes no sense? Most importantly, Inglis is unsentimentally human–she reveals her struggle, her anger, her dark sense of humor (a key component for bereaved parents). And finally her ability to forgive–forgiving those who didn’t understand her and ultimately, forgiving herself for being someone who could not protect her child from death.
September 4, 2018
I was lucky enough to be one of the early readers for this incredibly moving memoir-of-sorts, written by a true talent and wonderful human I've been doubly lucky to "know" via the Interwebs for many years. Having been fortunate enough to read Kate's words in various places online and in print for over a decade, I already knew her writing would speak to me, as it's done so many times before. She and her stories—her soul-affirming empathy and honesty—have always been a gift, and something I've perpetually connected with; this beautiful book is certainly no exception to that truth.
Wholly unintentionally, but quite aptly, I started reading this book on April 5 (my dad's birthday), and planned to finish it by April 15th (the day he died when I was about to turn 13). This book had other plans for me, though, and I know it's not coincidence. So often in my life I've felt a book has found me, or I've found it, at precisely the right time. That I've started and finished books exactly when I was meant to. It took me two months to read this book, and another two months to sit with exactly what I wanted to say about it, because that's how potent and powerful it is.
Attempting to synthesize any book into a handful of lines is mostly an effort in madness; attempting to synthesize a book like this especially so.
This book is about grief, yes—about the costumes it dons, the way it holds on, how it can fill a room so full you can touch it while it steals the breath from your chest. How it can send you into a fit of laughter one moment and inconsolable laments the next.
It's so much truth about how certain types of grief will never be truly gone, and instead must be carried as we reluctantly move on: Gently, fearlessly, patiently, collectively.
It's about all of that, and so much more.
While I was reading I covered Kate's pages in words of my own, writing notes to myself, to Kate, to my dad, my grandfather, my grandmother, my aunt Anne who died just over a year before her brother/my father did, the woman everyone tells me I look and sound so much like.
This book arrived exactly when I needed it most, and unearthed something important and vocal in me that had been sleeping, and for that I will always be so grateful.
[Five stars for truth and beauty, for madness and relief, and because humans will never stop needing books like this.]
Wholly unintentionally, but quite aptly, I started reading this book on April 5 (my dad's birthday), and planned to finish it by April 15th (the day he died when I was about to turn 13). This book had other plans for me, though, and I know it's not coincidence. So often in my life I've felt a book has found me, or I've found it, at precisely the right time. That I've started and finished books exactly when I was meant to. It took me two months to read this book, and another two months to sit with exactly what I wanted to say about it, because that's how potent and powerful it is.
Attempting to synthesize any book into a handful of lines is mostly an effort in madness; attempting to synthesize a book like this especially so.
This book is about grief, yes—about the costumes it dons, the way it holds on, how it can fill a room so full you can touch it while it steals the breath from your chest. How it can send you into a fit of laughter one moment and inconsolable laments the next.
It's so much truth about how certain types of grief will never be truly gone, and instead must be carried as we reluctantly move on: Gently, fearlessly, patiently, collectively.
It's about all of that, and so much more.
While I was reading I covered Kate's pages in words of my own, writing notes to myself, to Kate, to my dad, my grandfather, my grandmother, my aunt Anne who died just over a year before her brother/my father did, the woman everyone tells me I look and sound so much like.
This book arrived exactly when I needed it most, and unearthed something important and vocal in me that had been sleeping, and for that I will always be so grateful.
[Five stars for truth and beauty, for madness and relief, and because humans will never stop needing books like this.]
April 15, 2018
With her deeply melodic writing voice, the guts of a commander marching her troops unswervingly into danger, and the soul of an ocean, Kate Inglis finally, finally helps us understand what Tennyson meant when he penned “it is better to have loved and lost, than to never have loved at all.” Kate tells us that “the erasure of Liam never having been Liam —even for a moment — would have been more sad than his traumatic birth, his limited life, and our terrible loss of him. That he was here at all made more love in the world.”
Notes for the Everlost is in fact, a guide to grief, as Kate shares the seemingly little things and the overwhelmingly tremendous things with us, detailing the unvarnished and craptastic realities of life in the immediate aftermath of losing a baby, and taking us with her as she survives until weeks became months become years. She lets us stay by her side as she arrives at a place where there is as much beauty in knowing that Liam’s being here mattered, immeasurably, as there is sorrow in wondering who he would have become and why he feels so far away.
Kate gives permission to be sad and angry, forever, that phantom parenthood is all there is for this child, but nearly begs each phantom parent to stop asking “why,” as there is no answer, and in each asking, the risk of opening the barely-healed wound again is profound. Most importantly, Kate teaches some ways to be a phantom parent who is at peace.
Notes for the Everlost is in fact, a guide to grief, as Kate shares the seemingly little things and the overwhelmingly tremendous things with us, detailing the unvarnished and craptastic realities of life in the immediate aftermath of losing a baby, and taking us with her as she survives until weeks became months become years. She lets us stay by her side as she arrives at a place where there is as much beauty in knowing that Liam’s being here mattered, immeasurably, as there is sorrow in wondering who he would have become and why he feels so far away.
Kate gives permission to be sad and angry, forever, that phantom parenthood is all there is for this child, but nearly begs each phantom parent to stop asking “why,” as there is no answer, and in each asking, the risk of opening the barely-healed wound again is profound. Most importantly, Kate teaches some ways to be a phantom parent who is at peace.
July 28, 2018
As a parent that has suffered the lost of a beloved baby, this book speaks directly to me. Kate so eloquently speaks to this sad community and offers a pot of tea, lovely writing and immense understanding - having suffered the loss of one of her newborn twins.
Quite simply, if you know someone that has suffered the loss of a child, please give them this book. It is so isolating and terrible to suffer that loss. This book is like a cup of tea and a good friend when it is needed MOST. And it's just beautifully written to boot.
Quite simply, if you know someone that has suffered the loss of a child, please give them this book. It is so isolating and terrible to suffer that loss. This book is like a cup of tea and a good friend when it is needed MOST. And it's just beautifully written to boot.
January 16, 2019
I picked this book up a few days ago at the bookshop that I work at. I didn’t know anything about this book at all. It is a stunning account of grief and loss and living and loving. The copy I have is full of highlights and notes in the margins. I haven’t experienced what Kate Inglis has but I have been through different sorts of grief and I wish I could gift every person I know this beautiful and painful and essential book.
December 9, 2019
Kate Inglis gets it. Her baby died, too, just like both of mine.
I wish I could have written this gloriously beautiful book. Inglis articulates so many things I've thought and railed against. And she does it so damn well. She weaves in very practical advice, validation, and reminders that you, the bereaved, get to decide what you feel, and when, and how - not the "bootstraps barbershop chorus" who want you to be ok for their own sake, because grief makes others uncomfortable. Inglis explores this dynamic - the bereaved vs those around them - in great depth, and shares some very valuable lessons about forging your own path in a way that honors the dead and allows you to move forward.
She quotes Viktor Frankl and CS Lewis and a host of others very effectively to reinforce her own message.
She coins the term "death cooties," which is so apt and perfect -- the fact that your loss reminds others that they too are mortal, because if innocent babies can die unexpectedly, so can everyone else. I finally have a name for what infects me.
Just a sample of her insights: "People said, 'You're so strong' as if I'd been granted a moment to choose pluckiness and had chosen right, like Little Orphan Annie stomping on Miss Hannigan's foot. After your very small baby dies in your arms, to exist at all is seen by others as admirable rebellion. But it's not. When doctors say 'Follow me,' you follow. When they say, 'Do this,' you do. The system sweeps you up, propelling you and cutting you loose at the same time. Holding your child's death certificate in your hands, you are more zombie than plucky. You don't feel strong at all. But somehow, you still exist, and so people will marvel, and every 'You're so strong' reminds you, again, of the short straw you pulled. The platitude giver throws salt over a shoulder, having dodged the need to be the courageous-in-grief protagonist themselves, at least for the time being."
Everyone who has lost or been around someone who has lost would benefit from this beautifully written book. It's delicate and fierce, gentle yet assertive, and a safe harbor in the depths of a dark storm.
I wish I could have written this gloriously beautiful book. Inglis articulates so many things I've thought and railed against. And she does it so damn well. She weaves in very practical advice, validation, and reminders that you, the bereaved, get to decide what you feel, and when, and how - not the "bootstraps barbershop chorus" who want you to be ok for their own sake, because grief makes others uncomfortable. Inglis explores this dynamic - the bereaved vs those around them - in great depth, and shares some very valuable lessons about forging your own path in a way that honors the dead and allows you to move forward.
She quotes Viktor Frankl and CS Lewis and a host of others very effectively to reinforce her own message.
She coins the term "death cooties," which is so apt and perfect -- the fact that your loss reminds others that they too are mortal, because if innocent babies can die unexpectedly, so can everyone else. I finally have a name for what infects me.
Just a sample of her insights: "People said, 'You're so strong' as if I'd been granted a moment to choose pluckiness and had chosen right, like Little Orphan Annie stomping on Miss Hannigan's foot. After your very small baby dies in your arms, to exist at all is seen by others as admirable rebellion. But it's not. When doctors say 'Follow me,' you follow. When they say, 'Do this,' you do. The system sweeps you up, propelling you and cutting you loose at the same time. Holding your child's death certificate in your hands, you are more zombie than plucky. You don't feel strong at all. But somehow, you still exist, and so people will marvel, and every 'You're so strong' reminds you, again, of the short straw you pulled. The platitude giver throws salt over a shoulder, having dodged the need to be the courageous-in-grief protagonist themselves, at least for the time being."
Everyone who has lost or been around someone who has lost would benefit from this beautifully written book. It's delicate and fierce, gentle yet assertive, and a safe harbor in the depths of a dark storm.
September 27, 2018
Full disclosure: I have known Kate Inglis since 2009, but my first introduction to the author came a few years earlier, when my partner pointed me to her weblog (we were all bloggers back then, innocent and prone to oversharing). It turned out that Kate lived only a few miles down the road from the blunt rocky nose of Nova Scotian sea shore where I’d grown up, and my partner was certain that some of the names and places would be familiar. And yes, much of her writing felt familiar, soaked with salt spray and smelling of spruce. It was also shot through with grief, and longing, and impossible love for children both living and dead. At some point the entries about her experience with loss were taken down, and while I understood, I also hoped that she would revisit those words and bring them into the world again.
Wait no longer. Notes from the Everlost is heartbreaking and hopeful, a meditation on grief and how it can pierce the world, giving a glimpse of whatever it is may dance and sing on the other side of our senses. Part memoir, part guidance, Notes is a surprisingly precise and beautiful map of the lands beyond grief, giving all of us a sense of how to live with loss.
Wait no longer. Notes from the Everlost is heartbreaking and hopeful, a meditation on grief and how it can pierce the world, giving a glimpse of whatever it is may dance and sing on the other side of our senses. Part memoir, part guidance, Notes is a surprisingly precise and beautiful map of the lands beyond grief, giving all of us a sense of how to live with loss.
July 11, 2018
Navigating life after loss...a nightmare I've been attempting to do for 2 1/2 years. The loss of my beautiful daughter threw me into a world that was all at once alien & awful & surreal. To survive I turned to written words of all kinds seeking a path. I am so grateful that "Notes for the Everlost" found me. Kate's words were like a healing salve in my broken heart. Wise, poetic, heartbreaking & so, so real. Spot on analogies, wise & beautiful quotes, sharing other grievers' stories...my brain said yes, yes, yes...that! Underlined & highlighted throughout, it is the only book that as soon as I read the last line at the end, I turned immediately to the first line in the beginning. Thank you Kate Inglis.
March 5, 2018
Notes for the Everlost goes beyond the story of one woman’s grief to reveal the story of humanity, of our unadorned selves in their rawest form – pain, shame, vulnerability, sorrow, anger, defiance, and fear. The prose, at once poetic and simple, broken and whole, draws upon everyday things we understand to give sound, sight, and texture to the many things we don’t. Inglis brings grief into the experience of living rather than leaving it with the experience of dying and in doing so, delivers an utterly beautiful meditation on life.
November 21, 2018
Started. Put it away. Started again. Laid it on my chest and wept. Read some more. Threw it across the room. Kept reading. Wept again. Nodded my head a lot. Wrote notes and words and thoughts I’ve spoken and felt for 20 years 7 months 1 week and 6 days. It’s a story I wish for no one to ever experience. It’s a story for those of us who have.
August 3, 2018
I was eager to read this book the second I learned of its existence in this world. Partly because I've followed author Kate Inglis' journey through her blog and photography and fell in love with her lovely soul. Partly because I'm a journalist and eat up any storytelling I can get my hands on at the moment. Partly because I'm a mom and writer and somewhat of a photographer and I want to feel close to someone I admire in those ways. And partly because I'm a friend to more than one mother who has lost a child. And also because I'm a human being who cares about other human experiences.
Kate tells her personal journey of loss and love in the most intimate, raw, emotional way. I was hooked immediately. I wanted to scream for her and her family. Instead, I laid in bed and cried each night as I read of the days up to and after the birth of her baby boys. I'm the mom of three sons as well. I have seen other moms in their recovery from loss. It's hard to know what to say and do for everyone involved. Kate's honest explanation of dealing with the pain is beautiful and heartbreaking. But it's a powerful story that can help us all through our journeys of many different kinds of loss. That emptiness and sadness and darkness ... she tells it like it is and I respect this so much.
I highly recommend this book for anyone who loves with all their soul and wants to understand the connection between us all. It's a beautiful, beautiful story of a mother's love. Thank you to Kate for sharing it.
Kate tells her personal journey of loss and love in the most intimate, raw, emotional way. I was hooked immediately. I wanted to scream for her and her family. Instead, I laid in bed and cried each night as I read of the days up to and after the birth of her baby boys. I'm the mom of three sons as well. I have seen other moms in their recovery from loss. It's hard to know what to say and do for everyone involved. Kate's honest explanation of dealing with the pain is beautiful and heartbreaking. But it's a powerful story that can help us all through our journeys of many different kinds of loss. That emptiness and sadness and darkness ... she tells it like it is and I respect this so much.
I highly recommend this book for anyone who loves with all their soul and wants to understand the connection between us all. It's a beautiful, beautiful story of a mother's love. Thank you to Kate for sharing it.
November 14, 2023
"Why me? is the king of unanswerable questions. It will exhaust you. It will make you ache. It will make you loathe other people who seem every kind of lucky" - Kate Inglis- "Notes for the Everlost, a Field Guide to Grief." Someone kind gave me this book after my first miscarriage, or when my dad suddenly died. I can't remember which. And I can't remember who. But I remember kindness. I didn't read it. It sat there for years. I recently had another loss, and the book was waiting for me. Fate, timing, all that. Inglis poses these questions on timing and the universe and fate, but she doesn't provide any answers. Maybe we don't need them. Maybe the comfort of knowing other people have felt as terrible as you, as lost as you, as damn unlucky as you is enough. This book is part memoir, part a handbook for the heartbroken, part musings, but it helped. It helped me deal with the unfairness of grief and in many ways made me feel better. Overall it made me feel that life keeps going. It might not be the way we thought, or the way we wanted, but we always keep going and try to find those moments of lightness and goodness, compassion and love. #
April 9, 2018
It's a tricky thing, to write a book about a personal experience and make it feel universal. Kate Inglis has succeeded beautifully in her "field guide" to grief. Although she draws from her own experience (she lost a child ten years ago), this book will resonate with anyone who has experienced loss and death. But the true success of this book is that it is also wonderful to read as a person who has NOT yet experienced this. I came to this book as a longtime fan of Inglis' blog, but also as a person who wants to be a better friend to the bereaved, and Notes For The Everlost was a valuable resource for me. In a culture that shrinks from death, this book is warm, grounded, and even funny, even while it explores the most awful truths about death and its aftermath. Although she writes in some detail about her own heartbreaking losses, reading it never feels voyeuristic. I finished it damp-eyed, but also filled with a sense of hope.
May 11, 2018
Reading this book was like drinking fortified wine. It was heavy and sweet and bitter and swirled in my head long after i put it down. And i put it down often, consuming it in slow sips.
Reminiscent of C. S. Lewis' "A Grief Observed", Kate Inglis' chronicle of her own loss is part stream-of-consciousness, part reflection on the wisdom of other writers, and part looking back at her trauma from a place of healing. You see anger, sorrow, fear, self-doubt, numbness, all intermingled with hope and joy and bound roughly with sturdy love, like twine wrapped around a child's bunch of wildflowers. It's messy and untamed and doesn't belong in your house, but somehow fits beautifully in your antique vase.
I've been a long-time reader of Kate's blog, but seeing the story of her sons' traumatic birth, and one of their deaths, all in one volume made it cleaner and tighter. It hits more directly now.
Recommended for parents who have lost kids, but perhaps even more for their friends, to help those of us untouched by that kind of grief to understand a bit of their pain (and to show us what not to say to them).
Reminiscent of C. S. Lewis' "A Grief Observed", Kate Inglis' chronicle of her own loss is part stream-of-consciousness, part reflection on the wisdom of other writers, and part looking back at her trauma from a place of healing. You see anger, sorrow, fear, self-doubt, numbness, all intermingled with hope and joy and bound roughly with sturdy love, like twine wrapped around a child's bunch of wildflowers. It's messy and untamed and doesn't belong in your house, but somehow fits beautifully in your antique vase.
I've been a long-time reader of Kate's blog, but seeing the story of her sons' traumatic birth, and one of their deaths, all in one volume made it cleaner and tighter. It hits more directly now.
Recommended for parents who have lost kids, but perhaps even more for their friends, to help those of us untouched by that kind of grief to understand a bit of their pain (and to show us what not to say to them).
November 21, 2018
This is a must read for anyone who has lost a child, but also for anyone who knows someone who has lost a child. Kate is an incredibly beautiful writer who takes you on her heartbreaking journey of losing her precious Liam from an honest and eye opening perspective. Her world was shattered but she opened up and showed how she didn't let her loss break her; I believe this is something grieving parents will appreciate learning about. Kate's advice and guidance throughout the book will comfort and support anyone experiencing loss - be it the parent or those who want to help a grieving loved one. I highly recommend this book to anyone who is touched by grief.
August 29, 2018
When I received my copy of this book, I read the first few pages and realized I needed to put it down. I needed to read it when I could absorb it, when I could have silence, and when I could just be one with the words on the pages. Once I found that time and place, Kate's words felt like a soft blanket wrapped heavily but loosely around my soul. Having lost a son as an infant myself, her personal story weighed heavily on me. But the way she wove in messages of hope and light and goodness made me long for the pages to go on forever.
This book is a must-read for anyone who has experienced the loss of a child -- whether you're the parent, sibling, grandparent, or just a friend of the family. It will open your eyes to the true ways of the grieving heart, mostly by showing you there is no one way to go about it and to approach your life and relationships with grace and gentleness.
This book is a must-read for anyone who has experienced the loss of a child -- whether you're the parent, sibling, grandparent, or just a friend of the family. It will open your eyes to the true ways of the grieving heart, mostly by showing you there is no one way to go about it and to approach your life and relationships with grace and gentleness.
October 16, 2018
Notes for the Everlost is beautiful and honest. It is the perfect book to read when you or someone you love is faced with heartbreaking loss and words feel wholly inadequate. Through the lens of her own grief, Kate Inglis offers compassion, encouragement, and hard-won advice for readers navigating this treacherous terrain. Find a kindred soul in the pages of this book—you are not alone. As Inglis writes, “Grief is necessary, honorable, and healthy. Ordinary will find you again when you’re ready.”
July 19, 2023
cried many times to this one. found a lot of the chapters extremely useful and necessary for me, and a couple of the chapters less relevant for my situation. a good balance of truth, grief, humor, stream-of-consciousness, and telepathic hand-holding.
October 3, 2018
Book Reviews
A welcomed sense of belonging comes for those in a terrible club called grief.
Beyond the kindness Kate shows towards herself and her reader, beyond her bravery for tackling such a sensitive subject, I was also impressed by Kate’s honest, no nonsense writing style. Her wide open heart, likely due to her acceptance of her own grief, caught me and held me. While I read, I felt like a true friend was listening to my own grief story and understood me. Those in the midst of their own grief stories know of what I speak.
A welcomed sense of belonging comes for those in a terrible club called grief.
Beyond the kindness Kate shows towards herself and her reader, beyond her bravery for tackling such a sensitive subject, I was also impressed by Kate’s honest, no nonsense writing style. Her wide open heart, likely due to her acceptance of her own grief, caught me and held me. While I read, I felt like a true friend was listening to my own grief story and understood me. Those in the midst of their own grief stories know of what I speak.
January 5, 2020
Kate Inglis perfectly puts into words my most difficult to express thoughts and feelings.
May 16, 2018
The world needs this gorgeously written, raw honest truth. Notes for the Everlost is here to help guide us, like a flashlight turned on the spooky corners of our minds. Those who feel alone or crazed in various stages of grief have been tossed a life line with this book. Part guidebook, part memoir; it’s ripe with humanness and lyrical prose. When grief leaves many of us speechless, Kate has found all the right words to explore this human experience.
October 10, 2018
Beautifully written memoir about the messiness of loss, grief, healing and how it changes you. A valuable read for anyone who has experienced losing someone or something life altering.
June 8, 2018
Kate has a real gift. I lost my wife around the same time as Kate's loss and had no idea how to grieve at all. This book is a great reflection, part memoir, part handbook, on how to walk through the world with this burden and to understand what has been unwittingly given to those who grieve. How to carry it with grace and how to understand it in a way that carves a way forward with dignity. Hard to capture her unique voice, but I wouldn't ever want to be without this book. Everyone experiences grief at some point in their lives. This is a fine companion.
September 29, 2018
At this moment, I am not among the bereaved. As Notes for the Everlost so profoundly details, the state of bereavement is a vast and ever-changing landscape, its contours and features described with deep compassion by Kate Inglis. This book allows all of us to explore the deepest questions and mysteries that are unlocked by deep pain, and gives us tools to better support ouselves and others facing grief and bereavement. We will all pass through this landscape in our lives, and I am grateful to Kate Inglis for so sensitively sharing her experiences, gathering notes, and being a trusted guide.
April 28, 2019
I love the idea of getting through as best you can, and finding the truth in moments. Helpful for any grief.
June 20, 2019
Brilliant! Unlike any book on grief I've encountered, and I've encountered a great many. It's straight from the hip from Kate Inglis, and I'm thankful for her courage and candour.
September 20, 2018
“Notes for the Everlost - field guide to grief” speaks beautifully of the true nature of grief. The pain, the passage, the fallout of loss. You journey with Kate as she recounts the losing of her own son, and the days, weeks, months and years that follow his death.
Kate Inglis is a truth speaker, whose brilliant prose and descriptive imagery happen to make her feel more like a companion in grief than merely a guide.
Not only does she manage to make one feel less alone in their pain, she accurately conveys a reality in which grief may not have to last forever, as it is currently known. Somehow, she writes that to be survivable too.
I am also of the belief that this book would help someone who has not experienced grief and loss to understand what that experience may be like, in order for them to more closely identify with the grief of another.
I cannot possibly recommend this book higher, and I cannot wait to pass it on to another in grief. I am thankful it was written.
Kate Inglis is a truth speaker, whose brilliant prose and descriptive imagery happen to make her feel more like a companion in grief than merely a guide.
Not only does she manage to make one feel less alone in their pain, she accurately conveys a reality in which grief may not have to last forever, as it is currently known. Somehow, she writes that to be survivable too.
I am also of the belief that this book would help someone who has not experienced grief and loss to understand what that experience may be like, in order for them to more closely identify with the grief of another.
I cannot possibly recommend this book higher, and I cannot wait to pass it on to another in grief. I am thankful it was written.
December 29, 2018
Contrary to what might be assumed about a book on baby loss, Kate Inglis' "Notes for the Everlost" pulsates with life.
It is warm, and forgiving, and full of the little things that give life meaning. Kate doesn't shy away from the shock and despair, but she still maintains a profound connection to the world. Or rather, to both worlds - the one of baby loss, and the one where life goes on unfettered. Slowly, carefully, thoughtfully, she describes the journey back to a happy and full life; a life beyond the anger and isolation, where she holds her son's memory close throughout the years.
It is a book that leaves you feeling profoundly sad yet oddly re-energised, and at the end of the day, even a little wiser.
It is warm, and forgiving, and full of the little things that give life meaning. Kate doesn't shy away from the shock and despair, but she still maintains a profound connection to the world. Or rather, to both worlds - the one of baby loss, and the one where life goes on unfettered. Slowly, carefully, thoughtfully, she describes the journey back to a happy and full life; a life beyond the anger and isolation, where she holds her son's memory close throughout the years.
It is a book that leaves you feeling profoundly sad yet oddly re-energised, and at the end of the day, even a little wiser.
March 2, 2019
This book opened me up, helped me explore the depths of my feeing without being afraid of drowning in it.
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