The subtitle of Michael Rosen’s memoir is Life lessons on going under, getting over it and getting through it. If these lines sound familiar, you are right. Michael Rosen is the author of the forever popular children’s book We’re Going on a Bear Hunt. In 2020 Michael Rosen suffered severe effects from Covid and he was in coma for 40 days with doctors uncertain if he would survive. When he came home from the hospital, he was still very unwell, and this made him think about getting better: “what it means and how we do it.” In each chapter, the author takes the reader to a time in his life that was tough and what he did to get better.
In his early life Michael Rosen felt there were shadows in his parents’ lives that were mysteries to him. An older brother Alan, who had died of whooping cough was never mentioned. Nor did they talk about the relatives who had died in the Holocaust. His mother’s philosophy was: “What can you do? Nothing. So if there’s nothing you can do, why go on about it.” But Rosen discovered that uncovering the story of his relatives, was good for him. In his small way, he gave the relatives a place in history, they would not be forgotten, and this gave him some satisfaction.
There is also a heart-breaking chapter about his son Eddie who died at the age of nineteen of meningitis. He describes the many ways that helped him cope with his son’s death. He believes that slowly he was able to make space for feelings other than sadness. Not so much “moving on, as letting things move.”
Rosen’s style is conversational. It feels as if you are sitting next to kind stranger on a ten-hour flight. He tells you his story. You ask him, how did you cope? And he tells you what he did. Some of it may work for you, some of it may not. But it was nice to have his company and not feel alone with whatever you were going through.
Wilma
