How to go on living when plan A fails
Plan A in Sheryl Sandberg's life was to grow old with her husband Dave Goldberg. In her book «Option B», she tells the story of how her husband suddenly fell off a treadmill in 2015 and never woke up again. More specifically, she talks about the first 30 days - in Jewish belief the days of intense mourning, called «shloshim» - and then about the first year alone. A year in which everything was unreal for her and she and her children kept waking up in the morning and forgetting that her husband, her father, was no longer alive, that he had died irretrievably.
Sheryl Sandberg and Dave Goldberg had been married for eleven years. They had two children, aged 10 and 7. Although not particularly religious, a short prayer became the starting point for Sandberg's grieving process: «Don't let me die while I'm still alive.» Has the pain of losing a loved one ever been better expressed in words?
Don't ask: How are you, ask: How are you today?
Sheryl Sandberg
Sandberg tells how she told her children (her son didn't want to believe it). How they cleared out their father's wardrobe months later (the daughter: It smells like Daddy). What reactions from friends helped her (don't ask: How are you?, ask: How are you today?).
How grief destroyed her self-confidence, both as a mother and at work. And how a part of her stopped living. But when you have children, life goes on. But how do you go on living when a part of you no longer wants to live? That's what this book is about.
A helpful ritual
Now you could argue that it's easier to get on with your life if you're one of the richest women in the world. That's true. If, like Sandberg, you can just ask the renowned psychology professor Adam Grant for advice, then you are in a better position than others.
And yet it is infinitely touching and comforting how Sandberg fights grief with all her might and yet is unable to alleviate it. And how she lets us share in it. The family had a common ritual: before every evening meal, all four of them would go round the table and each of them would talk about the best and worst moments of the day.
It will never be the same again.
Sheryl Sandberg
It was an anchor for the busy family. After the father's death, no one could bring themselves to do it. But the psychology professor advised Sandberg to keep up the ritual. And so the decimated family bravely circled the table, desperately searching for a nice event in these cruel and dark days.
The book concludes with the realisation that things will never be the same again, but that they do go on. That there is life, if you like, even after the death of a family member. It all sounds pretty American. And it is. And yet I put the book in the row on our shelf where there are books that I think I will pick up again.
