Whether it’s cancer, a car accident, grief, a natural disaster or a family tragedy, we all experience trauma, and simply surviving takes everything we have. But what happens after that, when you realise that surviving survival might be harder still? With its combination of personal stories and expert information, Life Goes On shows us how to go on.
‘In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life. It goes on.’ These words – attributed to American poet Robert Frost in 1954 – were hidden in the recesses of journalist and author Megan Maurice’s mind after she read them as a teenager. Since she endured and survived treatment for cancer, such a life-changing and traumatic event, they became the only way for her to make sense of what came after.
After facing her mortality, and all the fear that brought not just for her but for her young daughter, Maurice discovered that once the momentum of pure survival was gone, she had to deal with its aftermath – and there were no tools for that. No guidelines, no rulebooks. Survival seemed easier by comparison. What she wanted to know was: If she was meant to go on, how did she go on? The world around her had not changed, even if she had. There just didn’t seem to be a place for her. So she made one.
Through delving into research on trauma and recovery and discussions with a range of people with lived experiences of trauma and recovery – people who shared their darkest days and greatest worries with her – Maurice has created the very manual she needed but couldn’t find, and in the process created a moving and illuminating portrait of not only the hardship of survival but the beauty too. For, when life goes on, there is so much to live for.
‘In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life. It goes on.’ These words – attributed to American poet Robert Frost in 1954 – were hidden in the recesses of journalist and author Megan Maurice’s mind after she read them as a teenager. Since she endured and survived treatment for cancer, such a life-changing and traumatic event, they became the only way for her to make sense of what came after.
After facing her mortality, and all the fear that brought not just for her but for her young daughter, Maurice discovered that once the momentum of pure survival was gone, she had to deal with its aftermath – and there were no tools for that. No guidelines, no rulebooks. Survival seemed easier by comparison. What she wanted to know was: If she was meant to go on, how did she go on? The world around her had not changed, even if she had. There just didn’t seem to be a place for her. So she made one.
Through delving into research on trauma and recovery and discussions with a range of people with lived experiences of trauma and recovery – people who shared their darkest days and greatest worries with her – Maurice has created the very manual she needed but couldn’t find, and in the process created a moving and illuminating portrait of not only the hardship of survival but the beauty too. For, when life goes on, there is so much to live for.
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