Loss: Author Sarah Hope Mandel

Devastated by the death of author Sarah Hope Mandel, Little Earthquakes: A Memoir

I have to share this with all of you.

When I went on Instagram this afternoon, the first thing that popped up was a reel from a dear author friend of mine, Sarah Mandel. It said, “If you’re reading these words right now, then I have died.”

I sank to the floor.

I first interviewed Sarah on my podcast on May 3rd, 2023. But before that, I’d been invited to her book launch event for Little Earthquakes: A Memoir. I’d already read the memoir and had fallen in love with it — and her. In fact, I ended up selecting it as one of my top 10 memoirs of 2023.

I just had to go. In fact, I dragged my kids with me. They really didn’t want to go and happened to be having one of those evenings where they rebelled against everything. So when we got to Sarah’s event, instead of being fully present, even for a few minutes, I was dealing with one of them hiding behind a beam and another begging to leave and so, after a few minutes, we left.

But before that, I locked eyes with Sarah. She knew who I was and was like, “You came!” We hugged so tightly and I told her how moved I’d been by her book. How excited I was to interview her.

In the cab home, I tried to explain to the kids how important it was to show up for people. How nice it felt to me knowing that my attending had made her happy, knowing everything she’d been through medically from the book.

Fast forward to our podcast. Here’s the video recording which I just uploaded to YouTube. Watch here.

You can also listen to the podcast here. I want you to hear from her.

Sarah and I kept in touch after. In fact, after we recorded, she wrote to me and said:

I just want to say that I'm not holding anything back anymore -- I've felt a seismic shift in knowing that way of being will not work for me. I know I brought some of that guardedness to our interview. I'm sure it's amazing -- and I can't wait to hear it -- and I'm so incredibly honored to be a part of anything you do! But just so you know, from here on out, you ask and I will tell the whole messy, in-the-moment story. (6/15/23)

We started emailing and DM’ing. She sent medical updates. I made jokes back about menopause and cerebrospinal fluid. (Don’t ask. It worked.) I invited her to a luncheon for editors and authors that I held at an event space at which I had a credit for my daughter’s bat mitzvah which was held on Zoom and not in-person due to Covid. I used it to celebrate Spring 2023 authors. She came!

Afterward, she wrote me a thank you note. I emailed her back and said, “Your note was so sweet. I’m so glad you were at the lunch and that it made you feel like YOU. I hate that you’re struggling again. It’s so unfair!!! Any time you want to forget about it (ha) and just be in author-land where you belong, let me know. Open invite to any and everything I do. Xx”

She printed out my note and hung it on her wall, sharing a photo of it with me.

Then she wrote me and said:

To feel a part of my professional identity come to life again, and to have a reminder of it on my little work/kids’ art wall — it’s real, in black and white. Your words validated for me that I am back to providing a version of the work I so love and have missed, achingly, to the core. And it feels soooooo good to have it back right now.

Later she wrote:

Well, now I’m in tears. Thank you so so much Zibby. You have no idea how much your message means to me, and especially at this moment in my life. You have such a huge heart. Those moments of feeling fully human and alive are so joyful and right now, surprising. I’m soaking them in whenever I can.

I responded: “Let’s just keep making each other cry.” She laughed.

Finally, when I told her I’d selected her memoir as a top 10 memoir of 2023, she wrote:

OH MY GOD Zibby I am joy sobbing. I am so f**ing honored I don’t know what to write! This is unbelievable - I so admire you and the fact that my book moved you and that it resonated just makes my heart grow so f**ing big Zibby. I love you. So much. From the moment I met you. Thank you so much for loving me back. I feel it. And it feels so so good. Thank you. Thank you! Xoxoxoxo

And the last email I got was:

You are an angel and I don’t believe in angels. I don’t know what to do with you! I am in tears, clearly. You are so kind I can hardly keep it together. My heart is f**ing exploding. Thank you for being so amazing. Thank you for being you. I am so lucky. If it weren’t for the cancer, I know 100 percent that I’m the luckiest person in the world. And it’s because I have people like YOU in my circle. Thank you for being in my circle, Zibby. Thank you. I adore, adore, adore you.

There are many more emails and DMs but I had to share — not to show nice things about me, but because she was so generous and open and authentic and real and amazing. I didn’t know her that well. I haven’t seen her in years. I’m not one of her close friends. Her family has no clue who I am or how much she touched me or how much our relationship, small in scale, was broad in scope.

It is possible to love someone from reading their book. It is possible to really connect through Zoom and social media, and feel real feelings and real loss.

When I saw that reel just now, oh. It knocked me off my feet.

I’ve learned so much about grief and how sometimes the loss of a public figure or an acquaintance can trigger those losses more close to you. But I feel all love and loss so, so deeply.

Just last night when I read about something else that made me said, I said to Kyle, “I feel like I care way too much about way too many people.” And he said, “That’s why I love you.”

I hope you all read Sarah’s memoir Little Earthquakes. I hope you all get to know her beautiful soul. I can’t even find her obituary online yet or any memorial information or anything or I would add it.

But watch the reel on Instagram @sarahmandelauthor. I dare you not to cry. She was one of us. And her light burned out far too soon. I’m aching for her two young daughters and her husband.

Let this be a reminder to all of us to use the time we have left for good. Don’t waste it. Show up. Feel. Love. Grieve. Read. Connect. And do whatever you need to do that, as Sarah said, made her so joyful and “feeling fully human and alive.” May her memory be a blessing.