‘Strange Grief: On The Leftovers and Departure’
— Hannah Cohen
Faith eats us from inside
I have never watched the show The Leftovers, but after reading this incredibly thoughtful and heart wrenching essay, I think I would enjoy a show about people leaving and those left behind. By using characters and moments from the show, Blankenbiller illustrates the absences and uncertainties in her life. People can and do vanish when you’re not looking, or worse they linger on the edges of your recent memory, teasing you into thinking they’re real and here. They are, as she says in her essay, “the living ghosts”.
Unlike the show, you don’t need a cataclysmic event to face the unanswerable. Sometimes you’ll never know why or how or when, and it’s okay to find acceptance in that. After all, “[t]here are so few maps to guide us, the strange grievers, as we try to veil our pathetic desire for one last chance, a final word, a miracle.” You just have to go on.