BY NYA WYNN
Staff Reporter
When Laura Carney was 25 years old, her father was killed in a car crash by a distracted driver. After searching the shelves for books about coping with grief in your 20s and joining activist groups to raise awareness about distracted driving, Carney still did not feel at peace with her father’s death.
On Oct. 27, Carney – university alum and author– visited the university to speak about her new book, “My Father’s List,” with emeritus professor Ben Yagoda. The stop brought her book tour to a close in one of the classrooms where she had her first English course as a student.
Carney felt like she had no guidance on dealing with such a sudden loss of a parent at 25: an age where you are no longer a child, but you still feel like one.
“The way I coped with my dad’s death was by going to Barnes & Noble and looking through all the grief books,” Carney said.
Carney felt that all the books she came across were not applicable to her unique situation. She found books about losing parents earlier or later in life but none about coping with the sudden death of a parent at her age.
It was not until 13 years after his death, when her brother uncovered her late father’s unfinished bucket list, that she began her journey to finding peace.
In the years following her father’s death, Carney was involved with activism groups but still unsure of her true purpose. Then, after her brother’s discovery, her mission became clear.”
“I had wanted to write a book about that year when I was 25 for 13 years, but I didn’t know how to do it,” Carney said. “When the list showed up, the way it felt to me was almost like his spirit had left it there.”
She set off on a journey to not only complete her father’s bucket list in his honor but also a journey of self-discovery and healing.
The list took her from Georgia, where she completed “Speak to a U.S. president,” all the way to Europe, where she checked off “Visit Vienna.” Not only did the list take her to 15 different places total, but it forced her far out of her comfort zone.
“I probably had some type of post-traumatic stress,” Carney said. “But I think by doing each of these list items I was able to have this fear exposure. It was almost curing me of that PTSD that I had. It showed me this thing that I thought was insurmountable, this pain that was inside of me, actually wasn’t.”
Throughout her journey, Carney realized that she was not in as much pain anymore. She found beauty in accepting what had happened and understanding all the emotions she had been feeling over the course of the 13 years following her father’s death.
“The epigraph of the book is my dad’s favorite toast,” Carney said. “The idea is that if you stop being afraid of your real emotions, you will find beauty in there, and that’s real beauty.”
Carney heavily studied and took inspiration from Joseph Cambell, a writer with interest in comparative mythology and religion. She took a strong interest in one of Cambell’s books, “The Hero’s Journey.” This type of story, concerning a valiant hero who answers a call to action and must make it through several trials to complete an enormously difficult task, is common in mythological stories throughout history. Carney knew that she wanted to structure her book as a hero’s journey.
“We’re all on some kind of a hero’s journey, and the things that happen to you that are sometimes the worst possible things can eventually turn out to be the best possible things that shape you into the person you’re supposed to be,” Carney said.
