In this episode, Melanie Brooks openly shares the experience of her father dying from AIDS and how, as a family, they didn’t talk about him being sick. It took her 20 years to look at the silence and grief. 

Her dad was infected with AIDS from a blood transfusion during surgery. Her dad was a surgeon. He thought he’d die in months so he decided to keep his health a secret to avoid the stigmas around AIDS. He and their family lived with the silence for ten years. 

Melanie shares some beautiful insights around grief. She says, “I couldn’t move forward without looking back.” She believed she was preparing herself for years, but nothing could prepare her for the loss.

Melanie Brooks is the author of the memoir A Hard Silence: One daughter remaps family, grief, and faith when HIV/AIDS changes it all (Vine Leaves Press, 2023) and Writing Hard Stories: Celebrated Memoirists Who Shaped Art from Trauma (Beacon Press, 2017) She teaches creative nonfiction in the M.F.A. program at Bay Path University and in the M.F.A. program at Western Connecticut State University and professional writing at Northeastern University. She holds an M.F.A. in Creative Nonfiction from the University of Southern Maine’s Stonecoast writing program and a Certificate in Narrative Medicine from Columbia University. She has had numerous interviews and essays on topics ranging from loss and grief to parenting and aging published in The Boston Globe, The Toronto Globe and Mail, HuffPost, Yankee Magazine, Psychology Today, The Washington Post, Ms. Magazine, Creative Nonfiction, and other notable publications. She lives in New Hampshire with her husband, two children (when they are home from university), and chocolate Lab.

Thank you for letting us be in your ears.

Coffee, Grief and Gratitude is created by Anne Gudger and Maria Gibson, a mom/daughter duo who talk about grief. 

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Anne’s memoir, THE FIFTH CHAMBER, a memoir of loss and love, is available wherever you get your books.

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