H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Grief affects each of us in unexpected ways. Each death of someone we love leaves marks we rarely anticipate or understand fully until time passes and healing begins leaving scars where wounds once festered.

This incredibly personal book details not just one woman’s grief following the unexpected death of her father, but her journey through that grief through the careful development of a bond with and training of a goshawk. Knowing nothing of falconry, it’s a fascinating read. But, more so, it’s an intimate and brutally honest narrative, both recounting her own misery and despair at losing her father and describing her failings related to her bird. (And, there’s a sentence I never thought I’d write.)

Replace her goshawk with whatever pet who you’ve owned or bonded with during a particularly difficult period in your own life, and it’s completely understandable how Ms Macdonald begins to assume the personality of her goshawk. She lives, breathes and sees the world through Mabel’s eyes completely distancing herself from the world beyond. It’s an escape from the reality that left her heartbroken. And, utterly relatable.

This is a beautiful read, if rather forlorn and bereft at times. Yet, given her eventual emergence from the very deepest depths of heartache, it’s also full of hope. She emerges from the darkness and dark times. And, all of us can use a little reminder of what is possible these days.

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