Death is a normal part of life. Grief is a normal part of life. Consider it a privilege to grieve—it means you have loved well. Grief will hit you in waves. It is normal for this to last for months. Chapter answers four important questions: 1. What is normal grief? 2. When should I worry about my symptoms? 3. How long will grief last? 4. How can I prepare for the loss of someone with a life-limiting illness? We can continue to feel grief even after we have completely recovered from the loss. Most importantly, don’t go through your grief alone.

This chapter draws on a series of contemporary Irish novels, charting the way everyday ‘technological objects’ – phones, laptops, computers – do more than simply sit alongside fictional characters. When we see ‘Connell’s face illuminated by the lit display’ of a phone in Sally Rooney’s Normal People (2018), we see a moment of intimacy between the characters. When Sinéad Hynes is shown ‘Googling [in bed]’ in Elaine Feeney’s As You Were (2020), we learn much about the character’s desire for privacy, her realism, her sense of humour. As the boy in Eimear McBride’s A Girl is a Half-Formed Thing (2013) hammers the controls of a computer game, or Anne Enright’s Gina in The Forgotten Waltz manages her extramarital affair on her smartphone, we see them finding refuge, expression, and intimacy in the company of their endlessly understanding machines. These are the machines that support their users, distract them, comfort them. The console consoles.