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Once More We Saw Stars: A Memoir
Two-year-old Greta Greene was sitting with her grandmother on a park bench on the Upper West Side of Manhattan when a brick crumbled from a windowsill overhead, striking her unconscious. She is immediately rushed to the hospital. Once More We Saw Stars begins with this event, leading the reader into the unimaginable.
But although it begins with the anguish Jayson and his wife Stacy confront in the wake of their daughter’s trauma and the hours leading up to her death, it quickly becomes a narrative that is as much about hope and healing as it is about grief and loss. Jayson recognizes, even in the very midst of his ordeal, that there will be a life for him beyond it—that if only he can continue moving forward, from one moment to the next, he will survive what seems un-survivable.
With raw honesty, deep emotion, and exquisite tenderness, he captures both the fragility of life and absoluteness of death, and most important of all, the unconquerable power of love. This is an unforgettable memoir of courage and transformation—and a book that will change the way you look at the world.
But although it begins with the anguish Jayson and his wife Stacy confront in the wake of their daughter’s trauma and the hours leading up to her death, it quickly becomes a narrative that is as much about hope and healing as it is about grief and loss. Jayson recognizes, even in the very midst of his ordeal, that there will be a life for him beyond it—that if only he can continue moving forward, from one moment to the next, he will survive what seems un-survivable.
With raw honesty, deep emotion, and exquisite tenderness, he captures both the fragility of life and absoluteness of death, and most important of all, the unconquerable power of love. This is an unforgettable memoir of courage and transformation—and a book that will change the way you look at the world.
245 pages, Hardcover
First published May 14, 2019
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23794 people want to read
About the author
Jayson Greene
3 books281 followersJAYSON GREENE is a contributing writer and former senior editor at Pitchfork. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, Vulture, and GQ, among other publications. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife and son.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 1,234 reviews
September 13, 2019
We live in a world where a brick can crumble off of an eighth-story Manhattan windowsill and strike a two-year-old child in the head as she’s chattering with her grandmother on a bench below. This is what happened to Greta Greene in 2015. Her head injury was too severe to survive; although she underwent surgery to relieve the swelling in her brain, she never woke up again. The title phrase is adapted from Dante’s Inferno, and it’s appropriate because the author and his wife, Stacy, went through hell – the kind of nightmare any parent would dread – but came out the other side to have another baby, Harrison, a little over a year later.
Music journalist Greene portrays all the ugliness of grief: his anger and bitterness, his hatred of happy families. I have read many a bereavement memoir and can’t remember a more searing account of the emotions and thoughts experienced moment to moment. Mary Karr (in The Art of Memoir) says that seven years is the ideal amount of time that should pass before you try to turn events into memoir. Here it was less than four, which accounts for the raw power of the emotion. Still, the author has managed to universalize his experience of loss, and to wrest all the beauty from it that he could. Greta’s death fundamentally changed his view of the world, such that he had to work to convince himself that it was still a good, safe place to raise his son. In the often mystical ways that he and Stacy tried to connect with Greta’s spirit (including lots of yoga, bereavement support groups, meeting a medium at a Kripalu retreat and undertaking a shamanic ritual in Taos), he came to believe that life is a continuum of energy, and that at its end that energy is conserved and recombined.
Marriages often do not survive a loss of this magnitude, so I was impressed that Greene and his wife turned to each other in their grief. There’s a tiny moment, after Greta has been pronounced brain dead, when Greene heads for the cafeteria to keep their fellow vigil-keepers fueled with coffees and snacks, and Stacy gives him spontaneous signs of affection. “I have an impossible thought: We are going to be OK. We will survive this. We are about to enter the unimaginable, but we are also going to pass through. … that kiss and that smile and that casual ‘I love you’ saved me.” I hope I show such grace and openness when tragedy comes.
A danger with memoir is that you are so imprisoned in one perspective that any supporting characters feel one-dimensional, but here I feel that I got a very clear sense of not just Greene, but also Stacy, her mother Susan, and even Greta, who had quite the little personality even if she only lived to two. It’s also rare to encounter an account of childbirth from the onlooking father’s perspective, and Greene describes that tumult so well. The whole book has an aw(e)ful clarity to it. It’s an instant classic of the bereavement memoir subgenre.
Some favorite passages:
“I am the reminder of the most unwelcome message in human history: Children—yours, mine—they don’t necessarily live.”
“Grief at its peak has a terrible beauty to it, a blinding fission of every emotion. The world is charged with significance, with meaning, and the world around you, normally so solid and implacable, suddenly looks thin, translucent. I feel like I’ve discovered an opening. I don’t know quite what’s behind it yet. But it is there.”
“A pall of societal shame hovers over everyone in this club, the haunted inverse of new-parent meet-ups and mommy groups. Children who lose parents are orphans; bereaved spouses are widows. But what do you call parents who lose children? It seems telling to me that there is no word in our language for our situation. It is unspeakable, and by extension, we are not supposed to exist.”
“We are vigilant about not succumbing to self-pity the way we are vigilant about flossing daily, and yet sometimes our situation practically begs it of us.”
“If you allow it to be, grief can be a soothing stone temple where you hear only the murmured echoes of your own voice and the voices of your fellow travelers. None of us is expected to accomplish anything concrete while we are here, or to rise to any particular occasion. The mundanities have burned off, and only ultimate meaning remains.”
“We aren’t here long enough to stop fighting death, to relax into our existence and gaze clearly. We thrash, mostly blindly, from one pole of oblivion to another. We are lucky if we truly notice three or five things in between.”
Music journalist Greene portrays all the ugliness of grief: his anger and bitterness, his hatred of happy families. I have read many a bereavement memoir and can’t remember a more searing account of the emotions and thoughts experienced moment to moment. Mary Karr (in The Art of Memoir) says that seven years is the ideal amount of time that should pass before you try to turn events into memoir. Here it was less than four, which accounts for the raw power of the emotion. Still, the author has managed to universalize his experience of loss, and to wrest all the beauty from it that he could. Greta’s death fundamentally changed his view of the world, such that he had to work to convince himself that it was still a good, safe place to raise his son. In the often mystical ways that he and Stacy tried to connect with Greta’s spirit (including lots of yoga, bereavement support groups, meeting a medium at a Kripalu retreat and undertaking a shamanic ritual in Taos), he came to believe that life is a continuum of energy, and that at its end that energy is conserved and recombined.
Marriages often do not survive a loss of this magnitude, so I was impressed that Greene and his wife turned to each other in their grief. There’s a tiny moment, after Greta has been pronounced brain dead, when Greene heads for the cafeteria to keep their fellow vigil-keepers fueled with coffees and snacks, and Stacy gives him spontaneous signs of affection. “I have an impossible thought: We are going to be OK. We will survive this. We are about to enter the unimaginable, but we are also going to pass through. … that kiss and that smile and that casual ‘I love you’ saved me.” I hope I show such grace and openness when tragedy comes.
A danger with memoir is that you are so imprisoned in one perspective that any supporting characters feel one-dimensional, but here I feel that I got a very clear sense of not just Greene, but also Stacy, her mother Susan, and even Greta, who had quite the little personality even if she only lived to two. It’s also rare to encounter an account of childbirth from the onlooking father’s perspective, and Greene describes that tumult so well. The whole book has an aw(e)ful clarity to it. It’s an instant classic of the bereavement memoir subgenre.
Some favorite passages:
“I am the reminder of the most unwelcome message in human history: Children—yours, mine—they don’t necessarily live.”
“Grief at its peak has a terrible beauty to it, a blinding fission of every emotion. The world is charged with significance, with meaning, and the world around you, normally so solid and implacable, suddenly looks thin, translucent. I feel like I’ve discovered an opening. I don’t know quite what’s behind it yet. But it is there.”
“A pall of societal shame hovers over everyone in this club, the haunted inverse of new-parent meet-ups and mommy groups. Children who lose parents are orphans; bereaved spouses are widows. But what do you call parents who lose children? It seems telling to me that there is no word in our language for our situation. It is unspeakable, and by extension, we are not supposed to exist.”
“We are vigilant about not succumbing to self-pity the way we are vigilant about flossing daily, and yet sometimes our situation practically begs it of us.”
“If you allow it to be, grief can be a soothing stone temple where you hear only the murmured echoes of your own voice and the voices of your fellow travelers. None of us is expected to accomplish anything concrete while we are here, or to rise to any particular occasion. The mundanities have burned off, and only ultimate meaning remains.”
“We aren’t here long enough to stop fighting death, to relax into our existence and gaze clearly. We thrash, mostly blindly, from one pole of oblivion to another. We are lucky if we truly notice three or five things in between.”
December 31, 2019
"We push the apartment door open and are greeted by silence. Nothing in here knows about Greta’s death—not her red horsey with its empty smile, the toy bin beneath the living room chair, the straps on her purple high chair that she would fiddle with. We bring the news with us into each room, like smallpox. "
I think I can safely say this will be my favorite memoir of 2019.
My younger sister passed away when I was little, which obviously made a big impact on the way I view life. Being a mom myself now, I am always aware of the possibility that this could happen to me and knowing that I would not be able to cope. In Once More We Saw Stars Jayson Greene gives us a raw and heartbreaking account of losing his two-year-old daughter in a freak accident and how he moved through the grieving process.
First off, I have the to say the writing is exquisite, personal and heartfelt. The book is filled with memories of many small, intimate moments with his daughter, which he describes in a loving but non-dramatic way. I think when hurt goes this deep, there is no reason to try and write it worse. Jayson just plainly tells us what happens, how he felt on a day by day basis and how something like this can change your worldview.
I deeply appreciated his love for his wife throughout the book, even though they had different ways of dealing with this tragedy.
Obviously, this is not a happy book, but it is real, and filled with many hopeful and happy moments. A testament to how strong the human heart is. Highly recommend.
March 27, 2019
There is a sense in which this is an almost unbearable story initially. The author's two year old daughter, Greta, is killed when a brick falls from a windowsill above where she is sitting. As a parent and grandparent I find this something I maybe would prefer not to think about I guess. However the author does offer his and the family's thoughts as they make they way through the trauma that follows this freak accident.
While a fairly large first section looks at the event and the immediate aftermath the book continues with the journey the parents take in their attempts to come to terms with, if not understand, what has happened to them. There is grief, beauty and love here and it can be very moving. If I have any reservations about this it would be about how well this very American story translate on the other side of the Atlantic. However it will be a story that many will love and will stay with anyone who reads it for a long time I'm sure.
While a fairly large first section looks at the event and the immediate aftermath the book continues with the journey the parents take in their attempts to come to terms with, if not understand, what has happened to them. There is grief, beauty and love here and it can be very moving. If I have any reservations about this it would be about how well this very American story translate on the other side of the Atlantic. However it will be a story that many will love and will stay with anyone who reads it for a long time I'm sure.
June 3, 2019
This book is remarkable. I'll start with that. I'd read the reviews and requested it from the library but once I picked it up, I wasn't sure that it was such a good idea to read it. This memoir is the story of the tragic and unexpected death of the author's two year old child. Why would I want to read that? I have plenty of sadness and grief in my life. Why read about more? I decided to be brave and start it. I figured I didn't have to finish it.
And the first half was brutal. Jayson Greene has a way with words. His writing often borders on poetry . I am awed by how he could write so poignantly and beautifully about the details around the day his daughter was injured and the following days of heartbreaking but essential tasks. He paints both the light and joyful pictures of a two year old's life as well as the dark and despairing pictures of grieving parents, family, and friends and he does it with grace and eloquence. I found the pages almost unbearable to read.
And so, after the second chapter I considered putting the book down forever. I wondered if maybe to continue reading would just not be a good idea for me. Too sad. I decided to look at the reviews on Goodreads and that's when I realized that there was more to this book than the day Greta died and the days following. I read reviews where people wrote of transformation and beauty, of strength and courage, of hope and a future. I decided to keep going. And when I did, I found all of those things.
This turned out to be a book that reminds me to keep my eyes open for miracles. It reminds me that there is so much more going on than is visible. It showed me that grief hurts and grief heals. I highly recommend this memoir.
And the first half was brutal. Jayson Greene has a way with words. His writing often borders on poetry . I am awed by how he could write so poignantly and beautifully about the details around the day his daughter was injured and the following days of heartbreaking but essential tasks. He paints both the light and joyful pictures of a two year old's life as well as the dark and despairing pictures of grieving parents, family, and friends and he does it with grace and eloquence. I found the pages almost unbearable to read.
And so, after the second chapter I considered putting the book down forever. I wondered if maybe to continue reading would just not be a good idea for me. Too sad. I decided to look at the reviews on Goodreads and that's when I realized that there was more to this book than the day Greta died and the days following. I read reviews where people wrote of transformation and beauty, of strength and courage, of hope and a future. I decided to keep going. And when I did, I found all of those things.
This turned out to be a book that reminds me to keep my eyes open for miracles. It reminds me that there is so much more going on than is visible. It showed me that grief hurts and grief heals. I highly recommend this memoir.
June 29, 2019
About half way through this book, I started to think this was one of the greatest books ever written. He combined a penetrating insight with such a lyrical gift with words that four different times I read different parts out loud to my wife.
The first half of the book, which deals with the freak accident that killed his daughter and how grief can overtake you was as powerful as anything I’ve ever read. If the book had ended there, I would have been buying the book for people who have suffered a loss.
But then the book takes a decidedly strange turn with the author and his wife turning to mediums and mystics to have connection with their late child. I understand how the loss of a child could drive you to extremes, and I’m not judging, but I honestly feel like offering these solutions to people would exacerbate their problems, not make them better.
I can’t recommend the book, and it breaks my heart, because the first half was so powerful. But the second part would damage more people than it would ever help.
The first half of the book, which deals with the freak accident that killed his daughter and how grief can overtake you was as powerful as anything I’ve ever read. If the book had ended there, I would have been buying the book for people who have suffered a loss.
But then the book takes a decidedly strange turn with the author and his wife turning to mediums and mystics to have connection with their late child. I understand how the loss of a child could drive you to extremes, and I’m not judging, but I honestly feel like offering these solutions to people would exacerbate their problems, not make them better.
I can’t recommend the book, and it breaks my heart, because the first half was so powerful. But the second part would damage more people than it would ever help.
October 19, 2019
It doesn’t feel right to give a star rating to a book like this. This is a true story and it is written from the heart. It is beautifully written and it is a wonderful, heartfelt tribute to the little girl this couple lost. I was inspired by the strength of this couple and the love between them. ❤️
June 4, 2019
This book broke my heart ten times over today. Strange, then, that I ultimately found it uplifting. Seems like a lot of uplifting stories can still wreck your heart every which way?
September 22, 2018
The entire first half of this book made me sob. Having never lost someone close to me, I found the second half about their grief very interesting, overwhelming, and hopeful. All I am left with is wanting peace for every person in this book.
December 25, 2019
It is incredibly difficult to review a true story which entails such tragedy and heartbreak.
The short life of Greta Greene is honoured by the beautiful words of her father. It is a whole family story of the impact of a random tragedy that occurs one day in New York. The turmoil that befalls the Greene’s is dealt with sincerely, without unnecessary drama or emotional overload.
A heavy but positive read.
The short life of Greta Greene is honoured by the beautiful words of her father. It is a whole family story of the impact of a random tragedy that occurs one day in New York. The turmoil that befalls the Greene’s is dealt with sincerely, without unnecessary drama or emotional overload.
A heavy but positive read.
August 31, 2019
Heartbreaking tragedy. But I was appalled at the lack of empathy and care toward Susan, the authors mother in law. They didn’t see her for 6 months after the accident? Despite knowing that she didn’t answer texts for two weeks and spent that amount of time in bed? I’m glad the author and his wife were able to move forward, but this tragedy happened to Susan just as much as the author and he never seemed to acknowledge that.
May 17, 2019
I don’t have the words to describe how heartbreaking, poignant, haunting and brilliantly written this memoir is. I read it with tears streaming down my face.
June 19, 2019
"I am the reminder of the most unwelcome message in human history: Children - yours, mine - they don't necessarily live".
This book is absolutely heartbreaking. Jayson and Stacy have to deal with what no parent should have to - the death of their child. This book goes through their tribulations. The hardship. The never-ending pain. The writing was so beautiful. I cried so many times. As someone who has lost a child (albeit, in a very different manner), this man was writing everything I've struggled to say since my son's death in 2013. This man wrote my feelings. I found myself nodding. I got it. I related to the struggle of bringing a second child, after the first child's death, into this world. The complete and utter fear...and relief of it all.
Once More We Saw Stars will stay with me for a long time. I don't think you have to have lost a child to get this book but I think this one hit extra hard and close to me. I want to thank this author for his words. Even though they were his words, his feelings, his struggled - I want him to know how much they meant to me. A definite 5 star book for me.
This book is absolutely heartbreaking. Jayson and Stacy have to deal with what no parent should have to - the death of their child. This book goes through their tribulations. The hardship. The never-ending pain. The writing was so beautiful. I cried so many times. As someone who has lost a child (albeit, in a very different manner), this man was writing everything I've struggled to say since my son's death in 2013. This man wrote my feelings. I found myself nodding. I got it. I related to the struggle of bringing a second child, after the first child's death, into this world. The complete and utter fear...and relief of it all.
Once More We Saw Stars will stay with me for a long time. I don't think you have to have lost a child to get this book but I think this one hit extra hard and close to me. I want to thank this author for his words. Even though they were his words, his feelings, his struggled - I want him to know how much they meant to me. A definite 5 star book for me.
May 21, 2019
I marvel at the author’s ability to share such an intensely personal and heartbreaking story and to capture such a breadth of emotions and thoughts in the retelling.
Sometimes the right book comes along to help process emotions you didn’t even know you had.
This book cracked me open emotionally and left me a little softer in the end. It was much needed.
Hand to those moved by the reading experience of When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi or Falling: A Daughter, a Father, and a Journey Back by Elisha Cooper.
Sometimes the right book comes along to help process emotions you didn’t even know you had.
This book cracked me open emotionally and left me a little softer in the end. It was much needed.
Hand to those moved by the reading experience of When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi or Falling: A Daughter, a Father, and a Journey Back by Elisha Cooper.
July 10, 2025
"Children who lose parents are orphans; bereaved spouses are widows. But what do you call parents who lose children? It seems telling to me there is no word in our language for our situation. It is unspeakable, and by extension, we are not supposed to exist." (page 103)
An exquisitely painful and ultimately grace-filled examination of the sudden and tragic loss of a
child, and the reckoning of such a loss within a life and a marriage.
An exquisitely painful and ultimately grace-filled examination of the sudden and tragic loss of a
child, and the reckoning of such a loss within a life and a marriage.
August 27, 2019
Good until..
The author writes beautifully ... until he decided he had to politicize the story. It was totally unnecessary to the story line, and pulled me out of it. Unfortunately I can’t recommend this book.
The author writes beautifully ... until he decided he had to politicize the story. It was totally unnecessary to the story line, and pulled me out of it. Unfortunately I can’t recommend this book.
October 7, 2019
It started out powerful, raw and moving. The second half fell apart imo.
September 17, 2019
My husband's family lost their oldest son to malignant melanoma when he was 29-years-old, and this tragic event served to divide the family's story sharply into before-Jim-died and after-Jim-died. Every one of the remaining four siblings changed, some more markedly than others, and as you would expect, the real changes were most apparent in Jim's parents. They rarely talked about it, but I wish they were both still alive because I would give them this eloquent memoir, Once More We Saw Stars.
It's the story of how Jayson Greene and his wife Stacy lost their two-year-old daughter Greta in a horrible, completely random accident, but it's also the story of their grieving and going on. I had heard Jayson Greene interviewed and decided that I couldn't read the book because of how much sadness I thought it would contain, but Greene is a gifted writer. He manages to convey how absolutely heartbroken, bereft, and overtaken by grief he and his wife are, and yes, there is plenty of sadness, but his writing is so beautiful that there is also plenty of honesty, hope, and resilience. I especially appreciated how much of an observer he could still be, even in the depths of his grief, and how respectful and accepting he was of the different ways he and his wife expressed their grief. I think Once More We Saw Stars may well be among the top five books I read this year.
I am the reminder of the most unwelcome message in human history: Children - yours, mine - they don't necessarily live.
It's the story of how Jayson Greene and his wife Stacy lost their two-year-old daughter Greta in a horrible, completely random accident, but it's also the story of their grieving and going on. I had heard Jayson Greene interviewed and decided that I couldn't read the book because of how much sadness I thought it would contain, but Greene is a gifted writer. He manages to convey how absolutely heartbroken, bereft, and overtaken by grief he and his wife are, and yes, there is plenty of sadness, but his writing is so beautiful that there is also plenty of honesty, hope, and resilience. I especially appreciated how much of an observer he could still be, even in the depths of his grief, and how respectful and accepting he was of the different ways he and his wife expressed their grief. I think Once More We Saw Stars may well be among the top five books I read this year.
I am the reminder of the most unwelcome message in human history: Children - yours, mine - they don't necessarily live.
June 16, 2020
I first heard about this book when I listened to an interview with Greene on Just the Right Book podcast (How Do We Write about Grief? - the podcast page is no longer available). Greene's two year old daughter, Greta, dies after she is hit in the head by a piece of brick that falls off the side of a building. Greta is sitting with her grandmother when this happens.
As a parent, it is inexplicably difficult to fathom the loss of a child. Even more difficult to imagine processing that grief and turning it into a book. But this book doesn't steep itself in melancholy; rather Greene gives a peek into his coping process and how it gets him to the other side.
This book reminds me of An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination. In this book, McCracken gives birth to a stillborn baby. She writes in an honest and pragmatic manner. Greene's book is written in a similar fashion. This doesn't mean there isn't emotion present. There is, but you aren't overwhelmed with the heaviness of the loss. Rather, we walk through the loss with Greene and he shows us the other side of grief. Not the absence of grief, for it will always be tugging at the edges, but rather that the incomprehensible can and does get conquered.
As a parent, it is inexplicably difficult to fathom the loss of a child. Even more difficult to imagine processing that grief and turning it into a book. But this book doesn't steep itself in melancholy; rather Greene gives a peek into his coping process and how it gets him to the other side.
This book reminds me of An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination. In this book, McCracken gives birth to a stillborn baby. She writes in an honest and pragmatic manner. Greene's book is written in a similar fashion. This doesn't mean there isn't emotion present. There is, but you aren't overwhelmed with the heaviness of the loss. Rather, we walk through the loss with Greene and he shows us the other side of grief. Not the absence of grief, for it will always be tugging at the edges, but rather that the incomprehensible can and does get conquered.
December 30, 2019
This memoir will not be for everyone, as it is a journey of Greene's grief. His 2-year old daughter died in a random accident and the book outlines her death and the year following it, where Greene and his wife grieve and begin to heal. Greene is a wonderful writer and I didn't feel like a voyeur reading his story though I definitely was moved by and connected with it. I would have liked to know a tad more about his mother-in-law's grief and healing process, as she was with the daughter when the accident occurred. We do get some, but since she was also traumatically affected, I would have read more about her perspective too.
August 6, 2019
This book had beautiful writing and the circumstances were heart breaking.
Unfortunately the author is obviously of a certain age and lives in the rarified atmosphere of the elite of New York. Grief makes us more self aware but from the writing, the author suffers from the disease of our time - self obsession. Add the New York superiority attitude and it ruined his talent for writing.
The author can write but until he removes himself from his bubble world in New York he will be stunted.
I couldn’t finish the book.
Unfortunately the author is obviously of a certain age and lives in the rarified atmosphere of the elite of New York. Grief makes us more self aware but from the writing, the author suffers from the disease of our time - self obsession. Add the New York superiority attitude and it ruined his talent for writing.
The author can write but until he removes himself from his bubble world in New York he will be stunted.
I couldn’t finish the book.
June 2, 2019
A heartbreaking book. You will cry. But that is a normal reaction to the random, accidental death of an innocent 2 year-old child. The book is interesting because it details how the author and his wife coped with the overwhelming grief of losing their beloved Greta and slowly moved forward to a hopeful and even happy life after her death. It is a painful journey. Many similar books have been written, but Jayson Greene is a gifted writer and tells their terrible story eloquently.
September 30, 2023
An impossibly difficult book to read but simultaneously beautiful. It starts right out with the unimaginable freak accidental death of the author’s two-year-old daughter and it really doesn’t let up through the entire book.
Excerpts:
(about the woman whose apartment the crumbled brick fell from ) Even in print, I recognized the sickened wonder in her voice, her newly dawning understanding of the malevolence and chaos of the world.
“It was like an evil force reached down.”
A neighbor, a mother of a three and a five-year-old, Walked past. Stacy made a nervous joke and the woman smiled in acknowledgment. “They are always breathing,” she assured us. Over the next months, we began to adjust to that reality. She’s always breathing, we told ourselves. Slowly the part of us that we weren’t even aware we were holding taut slackened, one muscle fiber at a time. I imagine it’s the same for all new parents, you slowly learn to believe in your child’s ongoing existence. Their future begins to take shape in your mind and you fret over particulars. Will she make friends easily at preschool? does she run around enough?
Life remains precarious, full of illnesses that swoop in and level the whole family like a field of salted crops. There are beds to tumble from, chairs to run into, small chokable toys to mind, but you no longer see death at every corner, merely challenges, an obstacle course you and your child are running, sometimes together, and often at odds with one another. …. The part of you that used to keep calculating the odds of your child’s continued existence has mostly fallen dormant It is no longer useful to you. It was never useful to the child. And there’s so much in front of you to do. What happens to this sense when your child is swiftly killed by a runaway piece of your every day environment at the exact moment you had given up thinking that something could take all of this away at any moment? What lesson do your nerve endings learn?
My eyes land on the list of bullet points for dealing with grief : cry as often as you need, one notes. Talk about your loved one as much or as little as you like, another advises. There is no should in grief and everyone has different needs. Another promotes the importance of vigorous exercise found to aid in fighting depression. I stare at them until they are seared into my brain. They are my first set of instructions on how to breathe on this new planet.
I called my therapist, a grave and serious woman, with whom I had only recently begun my sessions. She is suddenly in the deep end I think. I tell her what happened and she tells me calmly to check in with her every half hour or hour, to keep moving. She tells me how deeply sorry she is, but her voice is toneless, emotionless. I sent her flattening her reaction, transforming herself into an inanimate object I can lean against. I sag gratefully into her weight.
As she (my wife) debates these minutia with Liz sitting next to her on the couch pulling nearby, friends, and cousins into the conversation, I find myself glancing at her out of the corner of my eye with awe and concern. Does anyone else hear her screaming silently through this, I wonder. I am grieving around our apartment like a man in a world, painting, wailing, ripped garments, balled fists but Stacy’s trauma is not as readily evident. Like any born empath, she considers her own feelings to be the third or fourth most interesting thing in the room. Her emotions, as a result, are private wordless things, more sound and sensation than conscious thought. They escape her strict surveillance only in jagged bursts, undercover of convenient distractions.
A stranger would never know she’s a grieving mother, a figure so awful , it’s almost primeval. But it’s a trick of the light. Only I see the gruesome scarring an open wound covering her body.
I want it all to continue indefinitely, the idea that things will go back to normal, that I will be expected not only to keep on living, but to gamely leap hurtles: tax season, crowded commutes, deadlines, makes me think about how the real pain isn’t in the leg being mangled. It’s in the way the bones sets.
Greta was a victim of an accident. An accident happened. I have to learn to state this grievously unacceptable information over and over again. In every interaction I am the messenger for a rip in the universe, a talisman that carries a message “all will not be well” with me into every new room. I am the reminder of the most unwelcome message in human history: children, yours, mine, they don’t necessarily live.
(Hearing other parents talking about banning cupcakes)The language they speak used to be my language, every day words. Now I have new every day words. skull surgery, brain trauma, and they taste like volcanic ash in my mouth. I hate each and everyone of them. Their unexamined happiness. The unspeakable luxury they have to still worry about cupcakes. I wish monstrous things on them and their families.
With it comes a strange exhilaration that I have felt often in the weeks after her death. Grief at its peak has a terrible beauty to it. A blinding fission of every emotion. The world is charged with significance, with meaning, and the world around you, normally so solid and implacable, suddenly looks thin translucent. I feel like I’ve discovered an opening. I don’t quite know what’s behind it yet, but it is there.
She seeks out and build these social networks effortlessly, like a Spider spins silk. Give anyone five minutes with Stacy, even the most private soul, and she will gently prod them open with the force of her genuine curiosity. Surface questions, what do you do for a living, yield instantly to the richer stuff, what they think about their job, what else they might have done if they’ve had the courage, the sorts of friends they wish they’d made, their thoughts on free will. She is charismatic in the purest sense. There’s nothing sinister or needful lurking beneath it, no raw deal being struck. She simply wants to know about you.
The excitement we felt was both invigorating and awful, like breathing freezing air. My nerves were shattered and yet optimism cost through them anyway. I was hardwired, I realized. If you were built for optimism, you just had to figure out a way to stay that way. we couldn’t keep not caring even if we wanted to. We just weren’t made for it. I felt an unexpected throb of empathy for pessimists. you couldn’t help it either.
But nothing seems unreasonable in these circumstances and the tangible prospect of hope, the looming threat and prospect of real life is a crazy making thing. The ground is heaving once more beneath us and we behave like skittish animals sensing a storm.
Now at the end of another pregnancy, I am acutely aware of the bruising that covers us, how deep the contusions go, how hard all of these spots are about to be pressed again. Taking care of a child is, if nothing else, an ongoing exercise in self neglect. You rock a baby until sweat runs down your back. You pick bits of a toddler’s leftover food off plates. You fall asleep on bedroom floors inches away from the crib on your belly, praying your kid doesn’t sit up and start screaming again. during the last two weeks, I tried imagining what it would feel like to exist for someone else again. To be climbed on, yelled at, Treated like furniture, regarded as eternal and unmoving, like the sun or the sky. I yearn for the return of this feeling and I fear what it brings.
Excerpts:
(about the woman whose apartment the crumbled brick fell from ) Even in print, I recognized the sickened wonder in her voice, her newly dawning understanding of the malevolence and chaos of the world.
“It was like an evil force reached down.”
A neighbor, a mother of a three and a five-year-old, Walked past. Stacy made a nervous joke and the woman smiled in acknowledgment. “They are always breathing,” she assured us. Over the next months, we began to adjust to that reality. She’s always breathing, we told ourselves. Slowly the part of us that we weren’t even aware we were holding taut slackened, one muscle fiber at a time. I imagine it’s the same for all new parents, you slowly learn to believe in your child’s ongoing existence. Their future begins to take shape in your mind and you fret over particulars. Will she make friends easily at preschool? does she run around enough?
Life remains precarious, full of illnesses that swoop in and level the whole family like a field of salted crops. There are beds to tumble from, chairs to run into, small chokable toys to mind, but you no longer see death at every corner, merely challenges, an obstacle course you and your child are running, sometimes together, and often at odds with one another. …. The part of you that used to keep calculating the odds of your child’s continued existence has mostly fallen dormant It is no longer useful to you. It was never useful to the child. And there’s so much in front of you to do. What happens to this sense when your child is swiftly killed by a runaway piece of your every day environment at the exact moment you had given up thinking that something could take all of this away at any moment? What lesson do your nerve endings learn?
My eyes land on the list of bullet points for dealing with grief : cry as often as you need, one notes. Talk about your loved one as much or as little as you like, another advises. There is no should in grief and everyone has different needs. Another promotes the importance of vigorous exercise found to aid in fighting depression. I stare at them until they are seared into my brain. They are my first set of instructions on how to breathe on this new planet.
I called my therapist, a grave and serious woman, with whom I had only recently begun my sessions. She is suddenly in the deep end I think. I tell her what happened and she tells me calmly to check in with her every half hour or hour, to keep moving. She tells me how deeply sorry she is, but her voice is toneless, emotionless. I sent her flattening her reaction, transforming herself into an inanimate object I can lean against. I sag gratefully into her weight.
As she (my wife) debates these minutia with Liz sitting next to her on the couch pulling nearby, friends, and cousins into the conversation, I find myself glancing at her out of the corner of my eye with awe and concern. Does anyone else hear her screaming silently through this, I wonder. I am grieving around our apartment like a man in a world, painting, wailing, ripped garments, balled fists but Stacy’s trauma is not as readily evident. Like any born empath, she considers her own feelings to be the third or fourth most interesting thing in the room. Her emotions, as a result, are private wordless things, more sound and sensation than conscious thought. They escape her strict surveillance only in jagged bursts, undercover of convenient distractions.
A stranger would never know she’s a grieving mother, a figure so awful , it’s almost primeval. But it’s a trick of the light. Only I see the gruesome scarring an open wound covering her body.
I want it all to continue indefinitely, the idea that things will go back to normal, that I will be expected not only to keep on living, but to gamely leap hurtles: tax season, crowded commutes, deadlines, makes me think about how the real pain isn’t in the leg being mangled. It’s in the way the bones sets.
Greta was a victim of an accident. An accident happened. I have to learn to state this grievously unacceptable information over and over again. In every interaction I am the messenger for a rip in the universe, a talisman that carries a message “all will not be well” with me into every new room. I am the reminder of the most unwelcome message in human history: children, yours, mine, they don’t necessarily live.
(Hearing other parents talking about banning cupcakes)The language they speak used to be my language, every day words. Now I have new every day words. skull surgery, brain trauma, and they taste like volcanic ash in my mouth. I hate each and everyone of them. Their unexamined happiness. The unspeakable luxury they have to still worry about cupcakes. I wish monstrous things on them and their families.
With it comes a strange exhilaration that I have felt often in the weeks after her death. Grief at its peak has a terrible beauty to it. A blinding fission of every emotion. The world is charged with significance, with meaning, and the world around you, normally so solid and implacable, suddenly looks thin translucent. I feel like I’ve discovered an opening. I don’t quite know what’s behind it yet, but it is there.
She seeks out and build these social networks effortlessly, like a Spider spins silk. Give anyone five minutes with Stacy, even the most private soul, and she will gently prod them open with the force of her genuine curiosity. Surface questions, what do you do for a living, yield instantly to the richer stuff, what they think about their job, what else they might have done if they’ve had the courage, the sorts of friends they wish they’d made, their thoughts on free will. She is charismatic in the purest sense. There’s nothing sinister or needful lurking beneath it, no raw deal being struck. She simply wants to know about you.
The excitement we felt was both invigorating and awful, like breathing freezing air. My nerves were shattered and yet optimism cost through them anyway. I was hardwired, I realized. If you were built for optimism, you just had to figure out a way to stay that way. we couldn’t keep not caring even if we wanted to. We just weren’t made for it. I felt an unexpected throb of empathy for pessimists. you couldn’t help it either.
But nothing seems unreasonable in these circumstances and the tangible prospect of hope, the looming threat and prospect of real life is a crazy making thing. The ground is heaving once more beneath us and we behave like skittish animals sensing a storm.
Now at the end of another pregnancy, I am acutely aware of the bruising that covers us, how deep the contusions go, how hard all of these spots are about to be pressed again. Taking care of a child is, if nothing else, an ongoing exercise in self neglect. You rock a baby until sweat runs down your back. You pick bits of a toddler’s leftover food off plates. You fall asleep on bedroom floors inches away from the crib on your belly, praying your kid doesn’t sit up and start screaming again. during the last two weeks, I tried imagining what it would feel like to exist for someone else again. To be climbed on, yelled at, Treated like furniture, regarded as eternal and unmoving, like the sun or the sky. I yearn for the return of this feeling and I fear what it brings.
October 30, 2019
It feels terribly awkward to give this a star rating. It’s one man’a beautiful, raw, tragic, grief-stricken, horrifying recount of not only the freak accidental death of his two year old daughter, but also of his grief and pain and anger, that of his wife, and other family members. This book captures how they tried to find meaning in this senseless and life altering event and how they dared to find hope again.
I’m not going to lie: this book had me sobbing at points. It’s not easy to read (or in my case, listen to). But I feel that it’s owed to Jayson and Greta that as many people as possible read these words Jayson put forth to honor this little girl. And then go squeeze your loved ones a little bit tighter and longer.
I’m not going to lie: this book had me sobbing at points. It’s not easy to read (or in my case, listen to). But I feel that it’s owed to Jayson and Greta that as many people as possible read these words Jayson put forth to honor this little girl. And then go squeeze your loved ones a little bit tighter and longer.
June 1, 2019
I want to state first off, due to the subject matter, HSP should proceed with caution when deciding whether or not to read this. You’ll need a box of tissues nearby.
Just days after her second birthday, Greta, the only child of Jayson and Stacy Greene, is sitting on her grandmother’s lap on a upper westside Manhattan bench when, without warning, a brick falls off a windowsill eight floors above, striking the toddler in the head. She is rushed to the hospital where, despite heroic efforts, she succumbs to her injuries the next day.
The family is understandably grief stricken. In this memoir, Greene bares his soul as he and his wife search for purpose as well as clues to Greta’s spiritual presence attending grief groups and retreats
While only the first 41 pages deals with the accident, Greta’s presence is felt on every page. How does one survive the unimaginable? Although I haven’t suffered the loss of a child, as a recent widow I found much to ponder. The reader isn’t left with a feeling of doom and gloom as one would imagine but rather admiring the life-affirming resilience of the human spirit. As tragic as the story is, at the end, the reader is left thankful for his courage in sharing it with the public. Highly recommended.
Just days after her second birthday, Greta, the only child of Jayson and Stacy Greene, is sitting on her grandmother’s lap on a upper westside Manhattan bench when, without warning, a brick falls off a windowsill eight floors above, striking the toddler in the head. She is rushed to the hospital where, despite heroic efforts, she succumbs to her injuries the next day.
The family is understandably grief stricken. In this memoir, Greene bares his soul as he and his wife search for purpose as well as clues to Greta’s spiritual presence attending grief groups and retreats
While only the first 41 pages deals with the accident, Greta’s presence is felt on every page. How does one survive the unimaginable? Although I haven’t suffered the loss of a child, as a recent widow I found much to ponder. The reader isn’t left with a feeling of doom and gloom as one would imagine but rather admiring the life-affirming resilience of the human spirit. As tragic as the story is, at the end, the reader is left thankful for his courage in sharing it with the public. Highly recommended.
September 7, 2019
I am very sorry for your loss Mr. Greene. There is a quote in the book, ".. I watch a racist- an ignorant and malevolent man who believes in nothing- slowly rise to power.... 2016" Mr. Greene maybe you are the ignorant and malevolent man. A man that turns the economy around and has the lowest unemployment numbers and the lowest food stamp numbers in a century for the American people is not malevolent. A man that builds up the military to proetect the American people is not malevolent. A man that is trying to secure the border, pay down the debt, fix health care and protect our freedoms and liberties is not malevolent. A man that has created more jobs and better income and a safer more secure nation for everyone includeing blacks, hispanics and women is not racist. A man that can bring other leaders to the table to make good decisions for the whole globe is not ignorant. A man that created a real estate empire, grew his Hollywood carreer, and was successful at other ventures is not ignorant. Examine yourself Mr. Greene.
The writing in the book is not very eloquent. The story is a stream of consciousness with no substance.
The writing in the book is not very eloquent. The story is a stream of consciousness with no substance.
May 29, 2019
I was honestly scared to read this. In your mind, you think of the heartbreak and you instinctively tell yourself "I'll be a happier person for not confronting this".
And it's heart-breaking, for sure. But there's also such nuance to the book. And it's funny, it felt like one of the underlying messages to the book, the thing that made it so healthy, is that grief was confronted. It was explored, it was let in. It helped explain, to me, concepts I never really understood before: what it means when someone says grief is a "mechanism".
My point is: i'm a better person for reading it (there's some parallel to the overall theme of confronting and accepting grief to my decision to read the book but all I did was read a book so I'll stop pretending like I invented a vaccine). The book is excellent, I tore through it in two days. Sure, I cried on the subway but I also laughed, and noticed things I normally don't notice because the book really is eye-opening and encourages you to do the same.
And it's heart-breaking, for sure. But there's also such nuance to the book. And it's funny, it felt like one of the underlying messages to the book, the thing that made it so healthy, is that grief was confronted. It was explored, it was let in. It helped explain, to me, concepts I never really understood before: what it means when someone says grief is a "mechanism".
My point is: i'm a better person for reading it (there's some parallel to the overall theme of confronting and accepting grief to my decision to read the book but all I did was read a book so I'll stop pretending like I invented a vaccine). The book is excellent, I tore through it in two days. Sure, I cried on the subway but I also laughed, and noticed things I normally don't notice because the book really is eye-opening and encourages you to do the same.
September 24, 2019
Interesting and sad. His take on grief from the death of their 2 year old little girl. This one was interesting to me because there are several books that I've read and I come away thinking, "Man, if that ever happens to me, I'm going to need to re-read this book." I didn't come away thinking that on this one. This author doesn't believe in God. It is their story about grief counseling and seminars that they attended. It talks about some other ideas that they tried to help. Overall, I just don't see this approach being the one that I would take. That being said - everyone experiences and deals with grief differently. So - if it worked for them and this book helps others, then that is great.
March 9, 2020
I don't often give 5 star ratings. This book earned every star. It is a tribute to a daughter, to a wife, to family and friends. Jayson Greene wrote a powerful memoir that captured my heart as he described his journey from grieving to living and still grieving. He acknowledges that his grief will always be, but that his living will also be. He learns how to balance the two with tears and raw honesty along the way. Somehow, this book comforted me as it acknowledged that the grief we all carry is real and raw despite the time that has passed. At the same time, it manages to be a story of healing and love.
Greta's life was a gift. Greene's writing is a gift. I'm grateful that I experienced both through the pages of this book.
Greta's life was a gift. Greene's writing is a gift. I'm grateful that I experienced both through the pages of this book.
December 29, 2021
A brilliantly honest picture of what enduring grief looks like after losing an irreplaceable piece of yourself. This is the most searing and accurate telling of sorrow I’ve read to date (i.e. the story of roaring “I hate happy families!” or “I hate old people!” at the top of your lungs with a room full of grieving adults along side you- this not only made me chuckle, but sigh in relief for feeling understood.)
...
“Grief at its peak has a terrible beauty to it, a blinding fission of every emotion. The world is charged with significance, with meaning, and the world around you, normally so solid and implacable, suddenly looks thin, translucent. I feel like I’ve discovered an opening. I don’t know quite what’s behind it yet. But it is there.”
...
“Grief at its peak has a terrible beauty to it, a blinding fission of every emotion. The world is charged with significance, with meaning, and the world around you, normally so solid and implacable, suddenly looks thin, translucent. I feel like I’ve discovered an opening. I don’t know quite what’s behind it yet. But it is there.”
November 15, 2018
An incredibly sad memoir written by a father whose daughter's life is cut short by a freak accident. Shortly after her second birthday, Greta Greene is struck in the head by a crumbling brick. Jayson Greene chronicles the aftermath of her death narrating his stages of grief and quest for some sense of relief from the emotions threatening to overwhelm him.
Because neither Jayson nor his wife are religious people they seek out a variety of sources in an attempt to assign some meaning out to their tragic loss. Throughout the book Greene describes their journey and the legacy Greta's short life has had on her grieving family.
Because neither Jayson nor his wife are religious people they seek out a variety of sources in an attempt to assign some meaning out to their tragic loss. Throughout the book Greene describes their journey and the legacy Greta's short life has had on her grieving family.
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