M.T. Dohaney was calmly watching television when her husband went out to play hockey with friends. The next time she saw him, she was a widow. His sudden on-ice heart attack left Dohaney reeling, both from overwhelming loss and from the way that loss mangled every comfortable routine of her life. Grief quickly rendered even the smallest tasks unbearable: she couldn’t mark papers, go out to dinner, cross the street, or even remember to buy food. Larger chores, such as selling her house, seemed insurmountable.

At a friend’s suggestion, she tried to cope by keeping a journal of her daily struggles. That account, When Things Get Back to Normal, is essentially a letter written to her dead husband, describing how she’s trying – frequently without success – just to put one foot in front of the other. The journal was initially published in 1989, after a CBC Radio reading prompted a wave of interest from similarly bereaved listeners.

It’s not hard to see why it struck a chord. Dohaney’s journal has none of the slap-on-the-back encouragement of a self-help book, and it should counsel a new generation on how to avoid being like the many folks who chirped bright, supportive thoughts at the author, expecting her to just get her life back to normal. Dohaney is plainspoken, heartfelt, and straightforward, and doesn’t aspire to the overly literary, though the writing is solid throughout. The journal’s grace likely arises from the fact that it was written without publication in mind.

Since the first release of When Things Get Back to Normal, Dohaney has published fiction chiefly about women facing the challenges of Newfoundland outports. With this book’s re-release, her readers can gain insight into Dohaney’s own round of character building, as well as a new afterword describing how she is coping 15 years on. That update serves as a reminder about how misunderstood – and even socially unacceptable – grief and depression still are.