Presley Gerber tragically passed away after working toward addiction recovery in September of this year. He left behind his famous parents, Cindy Crawford and Casamigos businessman Rande Gerber, and his sister Kaia, who have all been reeling in the wake of his death. This week, the Bottoms cast member addressed that grief head on with a viral post about grief “coming in waves.”
It’s from The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion, a book with a lighthearted title that betrays its heavy subject material and that I still think about to this day. It helped me get through my mother’s battle with cancer, and I think it’s a helpful read for anyone going through it with a loved one, but it particularly highlights grief in the face of addiction, and I would guess was especially pertinent to Gerber.
Kaia shared a post this week about the titles on grief that have been helpful after losing her brother. A separate slide included a quote from Didion that's one of the more memorable from the book.
Grief, when it comes, is nothing we expect it to be. Grief has no distance. Grief, comes in waves, paroxysms, sudden apprehensions that weaken the knees and blind the eyes and obliterate the dailiness of life.
Here's what else she's been reading in recent days, per her post.
Didion wrote The Year of Magical Thinking in 2005, while frequenting hospitals as her daughter Quintana Roo dealt with health issues. All of this came just shortly after losing her husband, beloved author John Gregory Dunne. The book follows Didion’s experience with grief following her husband’s death alongside her daughter’s hospitalizations and complications related to alcohol abuse. The book ends without us knowing what was next for Quintana Roo and Didion, though her daughter would pass away in August of 2005, just shortly before the author would publish the book.
Didion mixes up stories about experiences she'd shared with her family over time with prose about everything she was also going through in the moment. It’s beautiful, direct, and devastating writing. I wouldn’t recommend picking it up as a beach read, but if you are going through something in your family, it’s helpful for contextualizing feelings and realizing humans are similar. We all go through the pain and anger and feelings of helplessness when we are losing a loved one.
It's not one of the author's titles that have yet made it to the big screen, but Didion’s book is powerful. I read almost 10 years ago and some of her words are still with me. It holds up years after it was published, and it’s a gripping read. I’m glad Kaia Gerber found solace in it. I hope her parents, and celebrity pals like George and Amal Clooney, have found some solace too.
