Ephemera: A Memoir

by Tenli Yavneh

In Briana Loewinsohn’s graphic memoir Ephemera, we are drawn into the emotional world of a woman searching backward in time for memories of her mother, who died when the author was a child. The mother was mostly absent during Loewinsohn’s childhood due to mental health issues, eventually dying of a related cause, probably suicide, though the author does not state that explicitly. Loewinsohn was quite young when the events of the book took place, and her adult desire to make sense of her memories is portrayed in bookended sections around the core of her childhood story, illustrating her life with – and without – her mother.

Research indicates that the loss of a parent in childhood often leads to depression in that child, both during childhood and as an adult. Parental loss affects children and teens profoundly, as young children have a limited understanding of death. In Ephemera, the young child has very little understanding of what is wrong, the mother’s issues are presented vaguely. Like most young children, Briana may think that maybe she is somehow the problem. The book shares few specific memories of the author’s mother, who was gone so much, and withdrawn due to severe depression even when home. Reading the book, I was left with a poignant sense of the mother’s absence more than her presence.

There is no suggestion of so-called “repressed trauma.” The author takes us step by step through the moment when little Briana finds her mother on the floor of the greenhouse. She remembers how cold her mother was and how she sat with her until she was cold as well. She takes us with her into mother’s room as she tries to absorb her mother’s absence, and the fact that, unlike at other times, she will not return.

The sensual world of this child as she floats through her childhood trying to understand the incomprehensible is beautifully depicted in the art, which is sparing of words but lush in its depiction of nature, created with an exquisitely muted palette that reminded me of natural dyes. The author demonstrates the silence that surrounds her mother’s death by telling the story sparingly, with no words at all until page 14. We learn how the child and adult connect to the absent mother through the natural world.

When I worked as a therapist with children whose parents had died, I observed how the adults charged with caring for the bereaved child – the other parent or a grandparent – often struggled to do so because of the depth of their own grief, leaving the child with less support. Adults often tell children confusing stories about where the loved one has gone, believing that children need to be shielded from the reality of death. None of this appears directly in the book; instead, the art conveys the wistfulness and longing of a child dealing with a profound and baffling loss, and a woman who is still seeking a way to connect with the mother she lost too early.

Tenli Yavneh, PsyD, is a retired Clinical Psychologist specializing in traumatic loss, crisis intervention, and psychiatric emergency   She also draws comics, mostly memoir and/or mental health related. She lives in Northern California.