The Importance of Grief

Holden Cawfield writes letters to his sister after the death of her twin brother. Ali Shaikh: Holden is so shattered by this loss that as I looked at that novel and the light of reading these letters, I realized that's grief. We tend to do this when there's a loss, especially of a child, they become an idealized figure. And their loss becomes unbearable because they represent in Holden Cawfield's case, maybe in all our cases, the perfect thing that was extinguished too soon.