The power of fiction: How reading helps us deal with grief

A few weeks ago marked the first anniversary of my grandmother’s death.

It wasn’t unexpected, but, of course, it was still hard. For several days before she passed, I knew she wasn’t in good health, and I felt suspended in a state of anxiety because I lived several states away and hadn’t spoken with her recently. What if I didn’t get to talk to her before she died? I already regretted not spending more time with her throughout my life, and now I was faced with a possibility that I might not get to say good-bye. It made it hard to go to sleep, worrying that I would be woken up by a call from my parents, telling me I was too late.

There was one thing that calmed my anxiety: The Baby-Sitters Club books. It had been years since I read them, but there was one story that kept coming to mind: Claudia and the Sad Good-bye. If you’ve read the books, you probably still remember this one, as it’s one of the saddest in the series. Claudia’s grandma, after having health problems and hospital stays throughout the first half of the book, dies suddenly in the middle of the night—when Claudia goes to sleep, she’s fine; when she wakes up the next morning, her parents have to tell her Mimi passed away.

Granted, this story may also have fed my fear of waking up to that dreaded phone call, but it was the second half of the book that really stuck with me and comforted me. Claudia is, understandably, angry and struggles as she deals with the grief of this unexpected death. She’s mad at the doctors, and even a little mad at her grandma for leaving her (Claudia also felt her Mimi was the only family member who truly understood her, making her absence even sharper). As she begins to heal, Claudia ends up talking to a photo of Mimi, expressing her anger, sadness, loneliness, and mix of other emotions. It doesn’t fix everything, but it’s a start.

And this gave me some small amount of comfort. I know The Baby-Sitters Club is fiction, written for kids half my age. But still, something in it told me, if Claudia can find a way to deal with her grief, so can you. I ended up being able to talk with my grandma before she passed, but still had all the emotions that come after someone you care about dies. And that story of Claudia was there. It had been over a decade since I read it, but that message of hope and comfort had been ingrained in me, coming up when I needed it most, even after lying dormant all those years.

Now, a year later, I’ve been able to reflect and realize how this points to the power of fiction. There’s no debate about reading being important—it seems like every “successful” person emphasizes that. But they often mean reading non-fiction, whether it’s self-help books, business strategies, or memoirs of other “successful” people. And those are great! But I think we, even subconsciously, relegate fiction to second-tier reading, meant for relaxing or escaping. While those are two vital functions of reading fiction, we often forget that it can be extremely helpful in other ways as well.

Studies have shown that reading fiction can reduce prejudice, increase empathy, lower stress, and more. This is incredible, if you think about it. Translating these weird squiggles of ink on a page of paper into words about people, places, and situations that are entirely made-up can have an actual effect on our mental, emotional, and physical state. Honestly, it feels a bit like magic to me. Fiction changes the way we think, how we interact with other people, and how we treat ourselves, and that means it is powerful, even if we don’t always recognize it.

One of my favorite quotes about fiction comes from fantasy writer G.K. Chesterton: “Fairy tales do not tell children the dragons exist. Children already know that dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children the dragons can be killed.” Fiction empowers readers of all ages to know that whatever they are going through, someone else has experienced it too, and they’ve made it to the other side. Whether it’s the death of a loved one or being bullied in school or dealing with infertility, there is story after story about someone who has survived it.

It might be tempting to dismiss them as “just” fiction—how can a made-up story help someone with a real-life problem? I can’t explain the science or psychology behind it. All I can tell you is that more than ten years after reading a book about a fictional death, it was that story above all others that grew into a blossom of hope in the midst of a desert of grief.

What stories do you turn to during hard times? Let me know in the comments!

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Featured image by Nong Vang.