((5-27-26) Mental Health Advocate Jerri Clark writes brilliantly in her new book – Gone Before Gone – about how she copes with the loss of her son, Calvin, whose serious mental illness led to arrests, homelessness and eventually suicide in 2019 at age 23.
What makes Gone Before Gone unique is her exploration of “ambiguous loss”—the grief experienced when a loved one with dementia or severe mental illness is “‘gone” but is still alive. She describes it as “death by degrees.”
She concludes that “Life’s only clarity is sheer uncertainty.”
In a positive review, Kirkus noted: “Clark offers refreshingly simple responses to platitudes about mental illness, such as a measured rebuttal to “everything happens for a reason.” Clark writes: “My son’s struggle with mental illness had no reason to it. I’m trying to find meaning in what’s left of my life, but that doesn’t mean his pain was something the world needed.”
Here are my thoughts.
