Las Vegas Review-Journal (Sunday)
Author finds ‘community’ with book on child’s death
JAYSON and Stacy Greene speak of grief matter-of-factly and calmly, as it’s something they’ve come to know intimately since the tragic death of their 2-year-old daughter, Greta, in 2015.
“I wouldn’t say that the work is complete because I don’t think it ever is when you’re grieving,” Stacy says.
Greta was sitting outside on a bench with her grandmother in New York’s Upper West Side when she was struck by a falling piece of a windowsill. She was rushed to the emergency room, where she died.
Writing was a natural outlet for Jayson, an editor at online music magazine Pitchfork. “I always wanted to write a book,” he says, but he didn’t know the first one would be so personal. What started as journal entries turned into something more six months after Greta’s death.
‘Window’ into death
“Once More We Saw Stars” is a memoir about the aftermath of their daughter’s death and the experience of coping with grief.
While the death of a young child is a dark and difficult journey to take a reader on, Greene says it was important to him that the reader felt safe.
“If I’m going to write a book about this, I need it to be bearable and readable without being false or untrue in some way,” he says.
He took inspiration from Paul Kalanithi’s “When Breath Becomes Air” and Joan Didion’s “The Year of Magical Thinking” for their ability to provide a “window” into the world of death and “tell the truth without sort of howling it at you.”
“I think that there were books I opened up where I didn’t feel safe with the narrator,” Greene says. “I’m stepping into this person’s wound rather than into their story.”
Since the book’s publication in May, the couple have been moved by the outpouring of support.
“We’ve heard from lots of people, particularly people who’ve lost children, who’ve said, ‘Thank you for articulating what it was that I was feeling,’ ” Jayson says.
He said the book has also provided them with a sense of community.
“I feel like the book has been sort of this beautiful extension where people have reached out that are this extended part of this community that we would have never otherwise reached,” Stacy Greene says. “I’ve been grateful that we’ve had these connections to these readers who are fellow bereaved people or people who are in some way connected to the grief that we experienced.”
‘Cherish every moment’
One person they heard from after the book release was a particular surprise — the parent of a child who received one of Greta’s organs.
“Because our story was in the news, they were very aware that they were receiving one of Greta’s organs, and the person actually reached out to us to let us know that their child was alive because of Greta,” Stacy Greene says.
Since the book’s publication, the Greenes say their lives have changed, but in many ways, they haven’t. On the night of the book release, their 3-year-old son, Harrison, threw a tantrum.
“Before we’re leaving … it’s this book about our family and the beauty, and Harrison just throws the world’s biggest tantrum,” Greene says with a laugh. “And Stacy’s putting on makeup and she looks, and he’s screaming, and she’s like, ‘Cherish every moment.’ ”