Book Review: Pack Up the Moon

Synopsis:

Joshua and Lauren are the perfect couple. They’re newly married, deeply in love, and enjoy successful and rewarding careers.

Then Lauren is diagnosed with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, an incurable and terminal disease.

As Lauren’s condition deteriorates, Joshua struggles to make the most of the time he has left with her and come to terms with his future — a life without the only woman he’s ever loved. He’s consumed with finding a way to avoid the inevitable ending, and unable to imagine his life after Lauren’s death.

But Lauren devises a plan to keep her husband’s life moving forward after she is gone. She reveals her plan in the letters she leaves him — one for every month in the year after her death.

Through her letters, Lauren leads Joshua on the journey through his grief: pain, anger, denial and, eventually, acceptance. Lauren’s requests take Joshua from his first attempt at throwing a dinner party for family and friends to getting rid of the bed they shared; from a visit with a psychic medium to sharing, for the first time, a kiss with a woman who isn’t Lauren.

As his grief gradually permits room for laughter and new relationships, Joshua learns the most valuable lesson of all: The path to happiness doesn’t follow a straight line.

Pack Up the Moon movingly illuminates how life’s greatest joys are sometimes hiding in plain sight.

Review:

Bestselling author Kristan Higgins says she has read a lot of books about death and grief, because she’s “always been sort of a maudlin person. I’m Hungarian, and that’s what my people do — we like to think about death and cry. And eat dessert.” Her favorite is When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi, a physician who learns he has stage four cancer in his final year of residency when his wife is pregnant. And although Higgins has published more than twenty books, she believes Pack Up the Moon is “probably the most important book that I’ve written because it is about life and death and love and loss. I don’t believe that you ever recover from a loss. You either become slammed into the earth by it and stuck or you learn how to carry it. And you get stronger and stronger; not that the burden gets lighter but that you get stronger. I wanted to write, almost like a how-to book and how do you get over one of the greatest losses you can experience.”

In the hands of a less-skilled writer, Pack Up the Moon could be depressing, sappy or, worse, both. But Higgins elevates the topic into a story that is neither. Rather, Pack Up the Moon, while undeniably gut-wrenching, is charming, poignant, and uplifting.

I want to make today great for Josh, make him laugh, make him feel loved to the moon and back, because I don’t think we’re going to make it to our fourth anniversary. We’re so, so lucky. No matter what’s coming, no matter how soon. ~~ Lauren

Higgins employs alternating narratives to effectively tell the story of a young couple who, after a disastrous first meeting several years earlier, run into each other again and instantly click. Lauren was a twenty-six-year-old public space designer who lost her father suddenly when she was just twenty. She writes letters to him as a way to keep him in her life, presented by Higgins in reverse chronological order. The book opens with a missive written on Valentine’s Day, just eight days prior to her death at the age of twenty-eight. It begins, “I’m dying, my husband is going to be a widower, and this has been the most wonderful year of my life. How’s that for surprising?”

Third-person narratives focused on Joshua or Lauren relate their second meeting, courtship, marriage, and how Lauren’s physical symptoms led to the devastating diagnosis: idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, a terminal disease with no cure that gradually fills the lungs with scar tissue, choking off the healthy portions of the organs and constricting breathing. Lauren’s condition is particularly cruel, not just because it normally strikes much older people and patients have an average life expectancy of three to five years. Joshua is a biomedical engineer who designs medical devices, and he becomes obsessed with either creating a device or finding a drug trial to kill the destructive fibers that will eventually claim his wife’s life by depriving her of oxygen. Experimental drugs, Chinese herbs, and an organic diet, combined with a traditional medical approach, failed to slow the disease’s progression. Joshua, on the autism spectrum, created and patented a medical device at the age of only eighteen, and sold it for a staggering ten million dollars. But his failure to save his own wife understandably causes him to feel guilt and anger.

In addition to his intellectual prowess and success in his field, Joshua is also handsome and clever, but socially awkward. He fails to pick up social cues and conversation is difficult. But Lauren finds him irresistible and asks him on a date when they meet again at a time when she has matured, largely because of the pain of losing her father and working hard to establish her own career. Higgins portrays a relationship between them that is believable, punctuated with the kind of banter that characterizes intimate partnerships. Lauren encourages Joshua to do things that he finds challenging by lovingly referring to him as “loser.” And when Lauren refuses to wallow in despair, pointing out the good things in her life, Joshua quotes Red in The Shawshank Redemption: “Get busy living, or get busy dying,” to which she replies, “Don’t you Shawshank me!” Lauren understands that Joshua tends to be a hermit, completely immersed in his work, and his mind shutters at most social events, so she gently manages him, completely enamored because of his gentle, considerate nature, and self-awareness that causes him to ask her to explain things to him that he fails to perceive or observe. For Joshua, Lauren is a perfect mate — beautiful, intelligent, accomplished, and thoroughly in love with him, to his unending amazement.

Higgins surrounds Joshua and Lauren with an equally credible cast of supporting characters. Donna is Lauren’s self-centered, but loving mother; Stephanie, Joshua’s mother, raised him alone after his biological father abandoned both of them when she was pregnant; Jen and Darius, Lauren’s sister and brother-in-law, and their two young children mean the world to both Lauren and Joshua; and Sarah, Lauren’s best friend, confounds Joshua. He always detected jealousy on Sarah’s part — her dating relationships are always short-lived. “Sarah had an edge to her, a subtle resentment toward Lauren, glittering like a piece of glass in the sand.” But she has been loyal and supportive throughout Lauren’s illness, and Lauren even thinks Sarah might be an ideal second wife for Joshua. There is also Radley, the new best friend Joshua acquires because of Lauren’s project. Each character loves and cares for Joshua, and helps him accept their affection and support as they prove that they will stand by Joshua and remain in his life even though Lauren is gone.

When Joshua assures Lauren that he will not be all right without her, she knows that she has to complete one more project before she dies, but it does not involve designing a public space. Rather, it’s a project she is sure her father would approve. “A person had to plan for the future, after all. Even if she wouldn’t be there for it.” So she writes twelve letters to Joshua, and asks Sarah to deliver them to him, one per month for the first year following her death. And in those letters, she not only reaffirms her love for Joshua and the life they were able to share oh-so-briefly. She gives him assignments, designed to propel her husband into the next phase of his life, confident that he will do exactly what she asks of him. As the months go by, Joshua must venture out of the house to shop for food and clothing, invite family and close friends over for dinner, consult a psychic, and buy himself a new bed and couch. As the year progresses, Lauren’s directives require increasing amounts of courage because they involve more expansive changes in Joshua’s life. The results of Joshua’s efforts are frequently hilarious, even, at times, to Joshua. Often, they are heartbreaking. And each month, he discovers more about himself and his abilities. He even makes a couple of new friends. Through Joshua’s travails, Higgins credibly illustrates the emotional quagmire he navigates in the wake of Lauren’s death. He is angry that Lauren’s life was cut short, guilty that he could not save her, frightened by the daunting prospect of living many more years without her, and forced out of his comfort zone — which is, basically, staying in the condo in the same clothes for days, watching television, and eating unhealthy food he has delivered, remembering his life with Lauren and mourning her. “They’d made the most of her time. They really had. Their marriage had been so short, but so happy. Yawning terror combined with utter bliss. Their beautiful catastrophe.” Joshua is determined to honor his late wife’s wishes, even though she is no longer physically present to hold him accountable. And that characteristic further endears Joshua to readers.

Through the letters Lauren spent her last days writing, Higgins compassionately demonstrates the depth of Lauren’s love for her husband, and her bravery. Higgins strove, through Lauren, to portray a woman who resolves to “say, even though I have a terminal illness and I know my life will be much shorter, I’m going to have the best year ever. I really loved that idea that you can be so full of happiness and joy, without being really sappy, but you can just make that decision of, ‘”This is the hand that was dealt to me and this is what I’ll do with it.'” Pack Up the Moon succeeds in no small measure because Lauren is likable, and her relationship with Joshua credible. Higgins has crafted fully formed, layered characters who are fallible, flawed, and thoroughly human. But earnestly committed to making the needs and happiness of their spouse a priority. Because of that, Higgins compels her readers to mourn Lauren with Joshua . . . and cheer him on as he tackles the increasingly difficult challenges Lauren presents him. Until, at last and inevitably, she releases him to enjoy the rest of his life.

Pack Up the Moon is an entertaining, engrossing, and life-affirming homage to facing adversity with courage and learning how to carry heartbreak. Following a devastating loss, even though the burden does not get lighter, it is possible to grow stronger, especially if, like Joshua, you are supported by someone who loves you unconditionally . . . and forever.

Excerpt from Pack Up the Moon

Lauren

Eight days left

February 14

Dear Dad,

I’m dying, my husband is going to be a widower, and this has been the most wonderful year of my life.

How’s that for surprising?

These past few weeks . . . months . . . I’ve been feeling things changing. Remember the time we all flew to California and drove home? I think I was ten. I remember being able to feel us getting closer to the East Coast, all those miles behind us, home getting closer, even when we still had hundreds of miles to go. You could feel it. You could tell you were getting close.

That’s where I am these days.

But I’m too busy living to dwell on that fact. Like Red says in The Shawshank Redemption, get busy living, or get busy dying. I’m going with the first one.

People carry a terminal diagnosis differently. I wanted to ride on its back like it was a racehorse, Dad. I think I have. I can’t say that being sick is the greatest thing that ever happened to me, because I’m not an idiot. But it’s an undeniably huge part of my life . . . and I love my life. More than ever.

Writing to you has been a way to keep you in my life after you died, Dad. You’ve been gone for eight years, but I’ve always felt you with me. That’s what I want to do for Josh. I’ve been working on my plan, and today, I finished. Kind of fitting that it’s our anniversary. Three years. I want to make today great for Josh, make him laugh, make him feel loved to the moon and back, because I don’t think we’re going to make it to our fourth.

We’re so, so lucky. No matter what’s coming, no matter how soon.

It’s easy to cry and even panic over this stuff. But then I look around and see everything I have, and all that joy . . . it pushes everything else away. It truly does. I’ve never been so happy in my life.

Thanks for everything, Daddy. I’ll see you soon.

Lauren

Joshua

February 14

On their third wedding anniversary, Joshua Park came home to Providence, Rhode Island, from a meeting in Boston with a medical device company. They’d bought his design, and he was glad to be done being around people, and very, very glad to go back home to his wife.

He stopped at the florist and picked up the three dozen white roses he’d ordered. This was in addition to the chocolates he’d bought from his wife’s favorite place, which he’d hidden carefully; the leather watch; a pair of blue silk pajamas; and two cards, one sappy, one funny. He did not take anniversaries lightly, no sir.

Joshua unlocked the apartment door and found the place dark except for a trail of candles leading down the hall. Pink rose petals had been scattered on the floor. Well, well, well. Guess he wasn’t the only one who’d gone to the florist. Pebbles, their dog, was asleep on her back on the sofa.

“Is this your work?” he asked Pebbles. Pebbles wagged her tail but didn’t open her eyes.

He took off his shoes and shrugged off his coat, which was wet from melting sleet. Cradling the huge bouquet, he walked slowly down the hall to the master bedroom, savoring the moment, banishing the worry over knowing she’d gone out in this raw weather. Anticipation fizzed through his veins. The bedroom door was open a crack, and the room flickered with more candlelight. He pushed the door open, a smile spreading slowly across his face.

His wife lay on the bed on her stomach, wearing nothing but a red ribbon around her waist, tied in a bow on the small of her back. Her chin was propped on her hands, her knees bent so that her heels almost touched her very lovely ass.

“Happy Valentine’s Day,” she said, her voice husky.

“Happy anniversary.” He leaned in the doorway and just took in the sight-his wife (the word still gave him a thrill)-her dark red hair loose around her shoulders, her creamy skin glowing in the candlelight.

“Guess what I got you,” she said.

“I have no idea.”

“It starts with ‘sexy’ and ends with ‘time.'”

“Just what I wanted.” He loosened his tie. “You’re not too tired?” he asked.

“Do I look tired? Or do I look like someone who’s about to get shagged silly?”

He laughed. “Definitely the latter.” He went to their bed, knelt down and kissed her with all the love, gratitude, lust and happiness in his heart.

“You taste like chocolate,” he said, pulling back a little. “Shame on you.”

“Is it my fault you left me alone in the house with Fran’s salted caramels?” she asked. “I think we both knew what would happen.”

“Those were hidden.”

“Not very well. In a shoebox in a suitcase on the top shelf of the closet? Please. You’re such an amateur.”

“You have a nose like a bloodhound.”

“Yes, yes, talk dirty to me,” she said, laughing. “Come on. Unwrap your present and make love to your wife.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said, and he did, sliding his hands over her silky skin. God, he loved being married. He loved Lauren, loved this room and this bed and the fact that she’d go to the effort of lighting candles and scattering rose petals and undressing and finding a red ribbon. Her skin smelled like almonds and oranges from her shower gel. She’d painted her toenails red. All for him.

“I’m the luckiest guy in the world,” he whispered against her neck.

“Ditto. Except woman,” she said, and she started laughing, and when they kissed again, they were both smiling.

In love wasn’t a phrase. It was how they lived, wrapped in the warm, soft blanket of mutual adoration, and in this moment, on this evening, nothing else mattered. They were untouchable, golden, immortal. He would love her the rest of his life, and he knew, with absolute certainty, that she would love him the rest of hers.

However long or short a time that would be.

Joshua

Two weeks later

February 26

Was it weird to look for your wife at her funeral?

But he was. He kept glancing around for Lauren, waiting for her to come in and tell him what to say to all these people, what to do during this service. Where to put his hands. How to hug back.

She would know. That was the problem. She knew all about these things-people, for example. How to act out in the world. At her wake last night, she would’ve told him what to say as her friends cried and held on to his hand and hugged him, making him uncomfortable and stiff and sweaty. Classic spectrum problem. He didn’t like crowds. Didn’t want to hug anyone except his wife. Who was dead.

She would’ve told him what to wear today. As it was, he was wearing the one suit he owned. The same one he’d worn to propose to her, the same one he wore to their wedding three years ago. Was it a horrible thing to wear your wedding suit to your wife’s funeral? Should he have gone with a different tie? Was this suit bringing shit up for her mother and sister?

This pew was hard as granite. He hated wooden chairs. Pews. Whatever.

Donna, Lauren’s mother, sobbed. The sound echoed through the church. Same church where Josh and Lauren had gotten married. If they’d had kids, would they have baptized them here? Josh was pretty much an atheist, but if Lauren had wanted church as a part of their life, he’d go along with it.

Except she was dead.

It had been four days. One hundred and twelve hours and twenty-three minutes since Lauren died, give or take some seconds. The longest time of his life, and also like five seconds ago.

Lauren’s sister, Jen, was giving the eulogy. It was probably a good eulogy, because people laughed here, cried there. Josh himself couldn’t quite make out the words. He stared at his hands. When Lauren had put his wedding ring on his finger at their wedding, he couldn’t stop looking at it. His hand looked complete with that ring on. Just a plain gold band, but it said something about him. Something good and substantial. He wasn’t just a man . . . he was a husband.

Rather, he had been a husband. Now he was a widower. Utterly useless.

So much for being a biomedical engineer with numerous degrees and a reputation in healthcare technology. He’d had two years and one month to find a cure for idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, a disease that slowly filled the lungs with scar tissue, choking off the healthy parts for breathing. He had failed. Not that a cure was easy, or someone would’ve done it before. The only devices on the market were designed to push air into lungs, work chest muscles or clear mucus, and those weren’t Lauren’s problems.

He hadn’t figured it out. He hadn’t created something or found a drug trial that would kill off those fucking fibers and scars. Since the day of her diagnosis, he’d devoted himself to finding something that would save his wife. Not just slow the disease down-they had those meds, she’d been on them, plus two experimental drugs, plus the Chinese herbs and traditional medicine, plus an organic diet with no red meat.

No. Josh’s job had been to find-or make-something that would cure her. Restore her. Keep her.

He had not done so.

A large picture of her was placed on the altar. It had been taken on their trip to Paris just before Christmas that first year they were married. Before they knew. Her red hair blew back from her face, and her smile was so full of fun and love and joy. He stared at that picture now, still stunned that he got to marry her. She was way out of his league.

The first time they’d met, he’d insulted her.

Thank God he’d gotten another chance. Not that God existed. Otherwise, she’d still be alive. Who the hell took someone like her at age twenty-eight? A merciful God? Fuck that.

It didn’t seem possible that she was gone forever. No. It seemed like Lauren, who had enjoyed childlike tricks such as hiding in the shower and jumping out at him as he brushed his teeth, could pull off the biggest trick of all-jump out from behind the altar and say, “Boo! Just kidding, babe!” then laugh and hug him and tell him she was just testing him these past few years. She’d never been sick at all.

Then again, she’d already been cremated.

Apparently, Jen was done, because she came down from the altar of the church and stood before him.

“Thank you, Jen,” he said woodenly. His mother, sitting beside him, gave him a nudge, and he stood up and hugged his sister-in-law. Former sister-in-law? That didn’t seem fair. He liked being related to Jen and her husband, Darius, not to mention their two kids. He even almost liked Donna, his mother-in-law, who, after a shitty start, had been great at the end there. When Lauren was actively dying.

Now, his wife was ashes inside a baggie in a metal container. He was waiting for the special urn to arrive from California, at which point he would mix her with an organic soil mix. He’d plant a tree in the bamboo urn, and Lauren would become a dogwood tree. Cemeteries were unsustainable, if beautiful, she’d said. “Besides, who wouldn’t want to be a tree? Better than compost.”

He could almost hear her voice.

Everyone began filing out of the church. Josh waited, being at the front of the church. His mom slid her arm through his. “Hang in there, honey,” she whispered. He nodded. They both watched as Ben and Sumi Kim, his mother’s best friends and next-door neighbors, went to the altar and stood in front of Lauren’s picture. Ben bowed from the waist, then knelt on the floor and pressed his forehead to it, then rose and bowed again while Sumi sobbed gently.

Josh had to cover his eyes for a minute at the reverence, the heartache in that gesture. Lauren had loved the Kims, who were essentially Josh’s second parents. Ben was the closest thing to a father he’d ever had. Of course Lauren loved them. She loved most people, and they all loved her right back.

The Kims came over, hugged him. Josh stood there with the three adults who’d raised him, all helpless now in the face of his loss.

No one could help him.

“You’ll get through this, son,” Ben said, looking him in the eye. “I know it seems like you won’t, but you will.”

Josh nodded. Ben wasn’t the type to lie. Ben gripped his shoulders and nodded back. “You’re not alone in this, Josh.”

Well. That was a nice thought, but of course he was alone. His wife was dead.

“Shall we head out, then?” the older man asked. Like his mother, Ben was good at giving Josh the cues he often needed in social situations. Not as good as Lauren, though.

Panic flashed painfully through his joints. What was he going to do without her?

“Let’s go, honey,” his mom said.

Right. He hadn’t answered. “Okay,” he said. It felt wrong, somehow, leaving the church. Ending the funeral.

There was a lunch after the service. So many flowers, despite Lauren’s wish that in lieu of, there’d be donations for the Hope Center, her favorite place in Providence, her hometown. Her workmates from Pearl Churchwell Harris, the architectural firm where she’d worked as a public space designer, were all here-Bruce, who’d been such a great boss to Lauren, crying as if he’d lost his own child. Santino and Louise, who’d gone on walks with Lauren to keep her lung capacity up. That shitty Lori Cantore, who’d asked if she could have Lauren’s office two years ago. Such a vulture, coming to the funeral when she’d been a pill in real life. He imagined grabbing her scrawny arm and dragging her out, but he didn’t want to make her the center of attention. This was Lauren’s funeral, after all.

And there were so many of Lauren’s friends-Asmaa from the community center; Sarah, her best friend from childhood; Mara from Rhode Island School of Design; Creepy Charlotte, the single woman who lived on the first floor of their building, and, Josh was almost sure, had been making a play for him since they’d met, wife or no wife. People from Lauren’s childhood, high school and college, teachers, classmates, the principal of Lauren’s grammar school.

Some people even came for Josh, having read Lauren’s obituary. Not exactly his friends . . . he didn’t have many of those. Lauren had been his friend. His best friend. Her family had welcomed him, but he was really just a phantom limb at this point. An amputation without her.