The alchemy of loss: a young widow's transformation
Biography, Women biography, Death and bereavement
Human-narrated audio
Summary
When Abigail Carter realized that her husband, killed on 9/11, wasn't coming home, she began to grieve, basing her process on alchemy. First was blackening, which strips down lead to its original alloys and corresponded to her initial phase of… disorienting grief. Then the whitening stage, which purifies the metal, was when new routines took hold and she started feeling as though she might make it, and lastly came reddening, when the base metal turns to pure gold, which corresponded to Carter's own enlightenment. Some descriptions of sex. 2008.