Three More Months by Sarah Echavarre – Review by Colleen Noyes
Three More Months by Sarah Echavarre
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This was my first book by Sarah Echavarre and the amount of emotions I have running through my body are overwhelming. Having recently lost my mom it touched on so many feelings. I found myself laughing, crying, and doing so much thinking. Oddly enough the way this book was written brought a certain level of comfort to me. It reminded me of key things that you don’t always think of when you are grieving a loss. The author did an incredible job of describing all of the parts of grief that you go through. It was very obvious that she has experienced this in her own life.
“ The dread seeps back in slowly, like a trickle of water. It’s like my brain is still so distraught that it doesn’t want to remember losing her. So every time I go to sleep, there’s that fuzzy moment between sleep and awake where I’m blissfully unaware that things have changed for the worse. And then when it does come back to me, when I remember that she’s gone, the grief hits like a kick to the chest. I lose her all over again.”
I felt this above quote every ounce of my body when I read it, it was like she was inside my soul and was feeling the things that I so often feel. When you lose somebody it’s so hard for your brain and your heart to connect and to realize what is true and what is not. I often find myself in this in between place questioning whether I’m in reality or a daze/dream. Then when it all comes rushing back that it actually happened and my mother is gone it’s like reliving the experience all over again which brings a tremendous amount of pain.
Towards the end of my mom‘s life I was the one taking care of her and when I read this portion of the story it brought back some funny memories because my mom and I often had these arguments about what she was eating. It reminded me of what our dynamic was also like during that time. “ I cross my arms, then shake my head in disbelief at how the parent-child dynamic has changed between us. Now I’m the one constantly bargaining to make sure Mom eats all her healthy food.”
Sometimes as we go through life we don’t always realize the effect our thoughts and mind have on everything. Sometimes we are so stunted by our own fear and anxiety that we forget to just let things flow. We want to try and control so much of our life and in doing so we miss out on many things. One of the things that hit hardest for me in the story was the following paragraph which I think the author did a great job of hitting the nail on the head.
“ “As upsetting as it is, we can’t control how long our loved ones are with us. Everyone wishes they could, but it’s just a harsh reality of life. What you can control is how you spend the time you have with them now. The longer you allow your emotions to be controlled by your fear—specifically your fear of losing your mom—the less you’re able to truly enjoy that time you have with her. If you’re always operating with this fear in the back of your mind, it’s going to make it hard for you to be fully present with her whenever you’re spending time together. It makes it harder to enjoy that time you’re spending with her because you’re always worrying about a million what-ifs. You’re always wondering how much time you have left with her instead of appreciating the time you have together now.”
I am often a person that over analyzes things when it comes to family or people I love even though I try desperately to go with the flow. I always want to know if there’s a secret meaning or if there’s something I should be understanding differently or questioning why things happen the way that they do. As part of the grieving process in this book and the things that Chloe goes through her therapist tells her these simple words and I found myself stopping and committing them to memory for the future.
“ Because some things in life don’t have a special meaning. Sometimes they just happen, both good and bad. And you should accept them for what they are instead of trying to search for a meaning that may not be there.”
“ There’s nothing wrong with acknowledging that things in your life are going well and enjoying it for the time being. You don’t always have to brace yourself for what’s going to happen next. It’s okay to live in the moment and enjoy things as they happen.”
I found reading this book had an effect on me that I wasn’t looking for or expecting. Since it is a fiction novel and not based on a true story I didn’t think that it would have such a profound effect on me, but in many ways it helped push forward the healing I had already started and I found myself so ingrained and encompassed in this book that I thought somebody had crawled in my brain and was writing about my feelings. This author really helped me in so many ways. The final couple of paragraphs in this review are in depth of what I feel like in the parts that I should be grateful for even though both of my parents are now gone. It’s the part that as the days go on I will continue to remind myself of that while I’m sad and mourning, I should also be grateful and then I need to acknowledge the blessing I had in my life of being close with both of my parents.
“ ‘The pain is great because the love is great.’ I honestly can’t think of a better way to describe my feelings and emotions right now. This pain . . . is immeasurable. It’s the worst pain I’ve ever felt. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. But in a way, this pain is a privilege to feel. This pain means the love I have for my mom—and the love she had for me and my brother—was deep and all-encompassing and unconditional. It means that I have endless happy memories and moments to recall when I’m sad.”
“ “This pain means the time we shared together was meaningful and priceless. This pain is a reminder of our bond, both emotional and physical. It’s knowing that one hundred percent of her makes up half of me.”
“ “Yes, I’m in pain. I always will be. I know it will get easier to manage over time, but I’ll always have it. I’ll always battle it. It’ll always take my breath away when I remind myself that I don’t have a mom anymore, when I remember that the person I love most in the world—the person who loved me and my brother more than anyone else—is gone forever. This pain will always cut me to the core. That will never go away. And that’s okay. I don’t want it to.”
Thank you to the author for this beautiful work of art that brought me so much peace at a time when I really needed it. I hope that you will pick up this book and read it especially if you’ve ever lost someone you were close to like a parent. I think that just like myself you will find a beautiful enrapture of comfort in the words this author writes. I look forward to reading more from her.
