“Last Things: A Graphic Memoir of Loss and Love” by Marissa Moss

Marissa Moss, an award-winning author and illustrator, is best known for her children’s series, “Amelia’s Notebook.” With “Last Things,” Moss uses her storytelling and illustration skills to tell her own story of loss and love. Her husband, Harvey, was diagnosed with bulbar ALS, a particularly aggressive form of the fatal disease also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. Harvey was dead within seven months. “Last Things” documents the achingly real journey Moss, her husband, and their three children were forced to embark on. 

“Last Things” isn’t just a story of death and loss and terminal illness — it also provides a deeply personal look at the everyday life of a family struggling to find their footing amidst an avalanche. Moss captures how alienating an illness like ALS can be, how it can change the person who has it, and how helpless and alone their loved ones can feel. A big theme is that dying often isn’t graceful, and the experience doesn’t always feels like what it is “supposed” to.

Moss does a fantastic, wide-reaching  job of addressing how children cope with losing a parent, both as the disease progresses and after Harvey has died. Her three sons provide a varied range of reactions and emotional responses as they watch bulbar ALS take the father they loved and replace him with a man they no longer know. It is devastating, yet the story isn’t completely full of despair.

There are moments of connection and intimacy. There are memories of “first” things. There are brothers who look after one another. And in the end, there is a resilient family. One that has gone through the dark journey of death and disease, and, despite it all, are able to return to the land of the living.