We're often handed a vocabulary for grief that assumes an ending: stages, closure, moving on. When Corey McAuliffe was a child, her father took each of his daughters out on her own — every third Saturday belonged to her. When he died in January 2019, those Saturday dates were long behind them. Then the number 23 began appearing — on receipts, on clocks, on trail markers — and she started following it. In an effort to reconnect, she brought the dates back, this time on the 23rd of each month. A horse sanctuary. A Broadway show he would have hated. A road trip, and a lot of quiet dinners at home.
What she found was that their relationship hadn't ended so much as changed shape, and that it had room for what they'd never managed while he was alive: questions she carried, a life-altering diagnosis, and the things handed down a family line long before anyone chooses them.
Part reading, part conversation, this talk traces how a childhood tradition became an ongoing practice of staying connected — and what a researcher does when the evidence starts arriving in the form of receipts and trail markers. Take what resonates, leave the rest. There will be time for questions.
Corey McAuliffe, PhD, grew up in Lake Oswego and now lives in Vancouver, BC, where she teaches at the University of British Columbia and works in mental health, disability, and wellbeing. Her debut memoir, 23 Dates with My Dead Dad, began after her father died in January 2019, when she reinstated the monthly dates they'd had when she was a child. She writes about grief as a relationship, not a stage — holding both the rigorous and the ethereal without asking either to give way.
This program is supported by the
Friends of the Lake Oswego Public Library. Participation is free, and no registration is required. Please note, seating is limited due to the size of the space. Seats will be available on a first-come, first-served basis. A
livestream will be available.
Lake Oswego Public Library is located at 706 Fourth Street, Lake Oswego. For more information, contact Alicia Yokoyama at 503-534-4228 or [email protected]