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E. A. Toblski is a writer living in Warrenville, Illinois, with her rescue dog who thinks he's a cat, Barkley Avenue. Under the name Betsy Dudak, she has penned one of two romances, What the Heck, Dec?!, a Colorado Romance Writers Award of Excellence finalist, and Wanna Bet, a a2020 Contemporary Romance Stiletto Contest finalist. See Me Grieve is Ms. Tobolski’ first non-fiction book about the sudden death of her husband and her walking on the road of widowhood.
Reviewed by Divine Zape for Readers' Favorite
Poignantly rendered and profoundly moving, See Me Grieve: A Widow's Journey by E. A. Tobolski tells the author’s story after the sudden death of her husband and the pain into which it plunged her, but it is also a story of triumph over grief, and of finding meaning in pain. On July 1, 2019, Tobolski's husband got hit by a pick-up truck while riding his motorcycle home. When she arrived at the hospital two hours later, she was given the devastating news: her husband of twenty-eight years had passed on. The man who has been everything to her was no more. After her husband’s death, E. A. Tobolski was diagnosed with ADHD after attending grief counseling sessions. She came to understand that her husband was once the balance that kept her steady. With him gone, could she get her life back?
See Me Grieve is a beautifully crafted memoir, and the author’s honesty in exploring her pain, the intense emotions, and the void left in her heart by the loss shines through the narrative. It is interesting to explore the stages of healing. Readers meet the author broken and confused, struggling with denial in the part where she talks about the fall. Then the darkness sets in, and the healing process begins with the acceptance that what happened cannot be changed. While this story is sprinkled with emotional moments and raw emotion in the narrative voice, E. A. Tobolski’s fresh and unique take on the psychology of grief will provide a space where readers can explore their own experience of loss and learn to grieve appropriately.
The writing is sprinkled with insights and words that readers can take to heart. The words that stuck in my mind are those that communicate her triumph over grief: “I find myself living more and surviving less.” I also connected with her resolve that “Today, I will try to see my growth and strength, because both are there, and reflect on how far I’ve come.” The prose is dazzling, the entire book intelligently structured, and the message is as powerful as any I have read on grief. In See Me Grieve, E. A. Tobolski leads readers through her pain to a place of hope, looking deeply into her own shattered soul and finding light in the very pain that broke her to begin with.
