Starting with Goodbye
A Daughter's Memoir of Love after Loss
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- £15.99
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- £15.99
Publisher Description
Starting with Goodbye begins with loss and ends with love, as a midlife daughter rediscovers her enigmatic father after his death. Lisa has little time for grief, but when her dead dad drops in for “conversations,” his absent presence invites Lisa to examine why the parent she had turned away from in life now holds her spellbound.
Lisa reconsiders the affluent upbringing he financed (filled with horses, lavish vacations, bulging closets), and the emotional distance that grew when he retired to Las Vegas and she remained in New Jersey where she and her husband earn moderate incomes. She also confronts death rituals, navigates new family dynamics, while living both in memory and the unfolding moment.
In this brutally honest yet compelling portrayal and tribute, Lisa searches for meaning, reconciling the Italian-American father—self-made textile manufacturer who liked newspapers, smoking, Las Vegas craps tables, and solitude—with the complex man she discovers influenced everything, from career choice to spouse.
By forging a new father-daughter “relationship,” grief is transformed to hopeful life-affirming redemption. In poignant, often lyrical prose, this powerful, honest book proves that when we dare to love the parent who challenged us most, it’s never too late.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this earnest memoir, Romeo reckons with her strained relationship with her father, who died at age 80 in 2006. Romeo was the baby of the family whose next oldest sibling was eight years her senior, and therefore she had her parents largely to herself. Her father, Tony, who'd had to abandon his dream of becoming a doctor to support his parents, instead became a wealthy textile manufacturer and dabbled in art. Romeo grew up in New Jersey and traveled in first class with her parents, and her father catered to her expensive passion for horses, which grew into riding competitively. However, she never cultivated a close relationship with him, choosing instead to bond with her mother who never challenged her. As an adult they grew apart. It is only after her father died, when he appeared to her in dreams and in moments of contemplation, that they began to talk again. She asked him why he stopped painting (then realized it was because her mother didn't like the mess it created), and he asked her, "What are you going to do about your lack of retirement savings?" Through these conversations, talking with friends and family, and her own soul-searching, Romeo came to understand that it was her quiet, curious, observant father who truly shaped the person she had become. Romeo's honest, hopeful story will strike a meaningful chord with those who've been prompted to reconsider their relationships or themselves after a death.
