Learning to Live with Loss

When Emily Rapp Black’s son Ronan was diagnosed with the rare and fatal condition Tay-Sachs disease, she turned to writing to make sense of her grief, what his short life would be, and what it meant to be his mother. Her memoir “The Still Point of the Turning World,” was written during Ronan’s life. Eight year’s later she wrote a companion memoir “Sanctuary” in which she explores learning to live after Ronan’s death, coming to terms with her loss, and learning that loss in not something that is overcome but rather absorbed into our beings. We spoke to Black about her two memoirs, her experience as a mother of a child with a rare and fatal disease, how she came to understand the meaning of resilience.