MICHAEL

A memoir about the transformative nature of the death of a loved one.

Life, as Michael Branson knew it, came to a screeching halt on the morning of Oct. 27, 2014. Suddenly, at the age of 57, Michael was having severe memory lapses and was unable to stand up straight due to back pain; over the last few weeks he’d had terrible headaches. In this memoir, his widow, Nelly Branson, recounts in detail what followed her husband’s diagnosis of terminal brain cancer. Alternating between the 16 months, beginning in 2014, that she cared for Michael through his treatments and her later visits to a medium, she tells of her husband’s physical and emotional transformations. Once robust and jocular, his illness reduced his shape to that of a “rag doll.” He began to express deep emotions and strengthened his connections with his daughter Janelle, his sister, and his estranged brother before his death. The author notes a softening in her husband’s manner that manifested in an ability to show greater empathy and live “in the moment.” He began to marvel at everyday things, such as the color and feel of fabric or “All the pretty lights” at a shopping mall. With humor and honesty, the author describes how she would flit around Michael like a “hummingbird”—his term for her—as she tended to his needs, and she holds little back when describing moments when she lost her calm. Here, her candor is genuine and heartbreaking: “I felt liked a trapped animal and I wanted out,” she writes when there was a delay in discharging Michael from a hospital. The chapters with the medium add a layer of spiritual intrigue, as she translates signs that she says Michael is sending the author and her daughter from the afterlife; however, these sections feel detached and less vivid than, for example, the descriptions of his fondness for a purple-and-white turban and his enthusiasm for new things such as “lingonberry-filled crepes.”

A heartfelt and candid portrait of a long goodbye that’s unnecessarily weighed down by its spiritual interludes.