Joan's Grief

I'm freshly into the book - Didion is an excellent writer - and I'm already starting to think about how the mind processes traumatic events and how the mind grieves. The mind is almost like an animal that runs around hurt, confused, bewildered ... when something of traumatic magnatude happens, it really can't cope. Even the most intelligent people, like Didion, can't help but envelope themselves in grief and not know what they will do until grief is experienced "the unending absence that follows, the void, the very opposite of meaning, the relentless succession of moments during which we will confront the experience of meaninglessness itself."