A place to begin – again.
This past year was particularly rough for me.
My house was under construction—all year—and still is, with a seemingly endless punch list that continues to demand attention. If only that had been the hardest thing we had to endure.
The longest day of the year—the official start of summer—was beautiful. The weather was warm, and the sunset over the mountains lingered as late as it ever would, sometime around 8:22 p.m. Around then, my husband, Mark, and our eldest dog, Marley, went for a ride in the gator—their evening patrol—while I stayed inside with our other dogs.
I didn’t see the car come up the driveway at first. When I did, Mark and Marley were already heading back toward the garage. It was a New Hampshire State Trooper’s car. I couldn’t imagine why they would be paying us a visit at 8:30 at night.
I watched from the kitchen as Mark spoke with the young officer on the patio. I watched as he walked back into the house and asked me for a pen and paper. He asked me to go outside and take the information. His son was dead. Our greatest fear as parents has been realized.
That’s how our summer started.
Once again, I found myself submerged deep in the waters of grief—far from shore—with a riptide pulling me beyond what I thought imaginable. I had already been living in grief for several years at that point. I had lost my parents and my former husband, the father of my two children. I was just beginning to feel solid footing beneath me again.
That footing didn’t last long.
For a while, I couldn’t focus on the written word. My usual bedtime reading—one of my anchors—became difficult. I would pick up my Kindle, read a few lines, maybe a couple of pages, and give up. My mind simply wouldn’t stay put.
When we needed to drive down to Connecticut for the service—a four-plus-hour trip—I chose a book we would listen to together on the way there and back. Historical fiction. It turned out to be exactly what we needed. The story gave our minds somewhere else to rest—somewhere structured and contained—when our own thoughts felt unmanageable.
That is where audiobooks come in for me.
I read with my eyes when I can. I read with my ears when I need to. Audiobooks fill my time while driving long distances, folding laundry, paying bills on the computer, and even in the dentist’s chair. Rarely, but sometimes, I listen to books while sitting quietly doing nothing. When holding a physical book feels like too much. Audiobooks are not a lesser form of reading. For me, they are often the difference between reading at all and not reading at all.
There were many times this year when even listening felt like too much. On those days, graphic novels and short stories became their own refuge. Limiting the number of words on the page helped. Allowing illustrations to carry some of the emotional weight was beneficial when language alone was overwhelming. Sometimes it was easier to absorb meaning through images than through sentences. Short stories, too, mattered more than usual. Their contained scope made it possible to enter and leave a narrative without the commitment an entire novel requires. They allowed me to keep engaging with the story even when my capacity was small.
Stories don’t fix grief. They don’t explain it or resolve it. What they do offer is companionship—voices that sit with complexity, with rupture, with what comes after the shattering moment. They remind me that attention is still possible, even when concentration is fragile. That meaning can still accumulate, one word, one sentence at a time.
Looking back at my reading over the past year, I can see that none of it was accidental. I wasn’t reading to escape my life. I was reading to understand how people keep living inside theirs—after loss, after love changes shape, after everything familiar has shifted.
I was drawn to books that witness rather than explain. Some things can not be explained. Stories that allow sorrow and tenderness to coexist. Narratives that don’t rush toward resolution, but instead honor the long middle—the part where most of us actually live.
Despite everything, I still found myself drawn to beauty, to animals, to quiet humor, to small moments of grace. That impulse feels worth naming. It tells me that grief hasn’t hardened me. That even now, I am still choosing to stay open.
So if you notice that I talk about audiobooks often, or that I move between formats, this is why. Stories help hold what I can’t always carry on my own. They do some of the emotional labor with me, and sometimes for me, when things are too heavy.
I’m starting the year here—clearing the air, naming the context, and giving myself permission to read in whatever way keeps me connected to stories. Everything that follows on Xine’s Pack—book talk, reflections, recommendations—comes from this place.
It felt important to say that first.
Next, I’ll be reentering the Lit Lounge—a space where I like to talk about books, not just review them. I still do that too, but here I dive a little deeper into the themes that intrigue me. I hope you will join me there and join the conversation. Otherwise, I will be talking to myself, which is fine too. Healthy actually.
