While taking the reader through her children's health crises, Philpott considers the power of worry, of love, and of trying to let go and simply live.
When you’re an adult who thinks your own churning mind is what keeps everything safe, it’s called anxious.
In her newest memoir Bomb Shelter, Mary Laura Philpott explores her worries about and views of the world, and she ponders existential questions about life and death.
Philpott considers her paralyzing fear of her children's health challenges and takes the reader through the emergence of her son's epilepsy and her daughter's asthma; she considers aspects of her parents' lives previously unknown to her; and she pieces together facts about her family that she had never recognized.
As Philpott wonders with dread what else could go awry, she faces that she has subconsciously believed that the power of her active caring and worrying could possibly prevent future tragedies.
As far as I can tell, the uncertain part is: every second we’re alive, until the last.
Philpott faces the unwelcome yet freeing reality that so much is out of our control, and she considers whether appreciating the fragility of moments--and the beauty of this fragility--may be the key to staying sane as we enter the unknown events of the future.
Do you have any Bossy thoughts about this book?
Mary Laura Philpott is also the author of the memoir I Miss You When I Blink.
I listened to Bomb Shelter as an audiobook.