An unflinching memoir exploring the realities of marriage, care-giving, how we die and how we grieve. Told with humour and courage, its raw honesty offers profound consolation in difficult times. After thirteen years together, Sarah Tarlow’s husband Mark began to suffer from an undiagnosed illness, which rapidly left him incapable of caring for himself.
Life – an intense juggling act of a demanding job, young children and looking after a depressed and frustrated partner – became hard. One day, Mark waited for Sarah and their children to leave their home before ending his own life. Although Sarah had devoted her professional life as an archaeologist to the study of death and how we grieve, she found that nothing had prepared her for the reality of illness and the devastation of loss.
The Archaeology of Loss is a fiercely vulnerable, deeply intimate and yet unflinchingly direct memoir which describes a universal experience.