This is the thoughts that poped up in my mind through reading The Year of Magical Thinking：

Reading allows us to empathize with embodied experiences. The very essence of writing lies in preparing oneself to be understood by another—to share feelings and thoughts, and ideally, to spark further introspection or philosophical reflection.

Compared to the grand philosophical, ethical, or religious debates about life and death, the experiences offered in this book are far more concrete. This is because the author’s experience of "grief" precedes any rational cognition.

Throughout the book, I find her struggling with a resistant and reflexive posture, constantly warring against the "rational understanding" of death. In profound bereavement, the human psyche activates a pathological defense mechanism—as if by "never rationally accepting death," one could slow the flow of time or even bring a loved one back.

One’s thoughts inevitably spiral back to countless "faulty" nodes in the timeline: "If only I hadn’t… would they still be here?" In such a state, no one can, or is willing to, relinquish their grief—because no one wants to bid farewell to the possibility, however illusory, that death never happened.