Ephemerata, also known as ephemera, refers to temporary items. Think flyers, movie tickets, or postcards. These items are only in our lives for fleeting moments, and we often don’t give them a second thought. And while our lives can feel fleeting, we don’t describe people as ephemera, even if their time in our lives is temporary. Yet the grief that is left in their absence is oftentimes something we wish we could easily dispose of.
Buy The Ephemerata: Shaping the Exquisite Nature of GriefBut grief isn’t fleeting or easily disposed of. It lingers and leeches and makes life hard to navigate. And thus lies the beautiful irony in the title of the new work by Carol Tyler, The Ephemerata: Shaping the Exquisite Nature of Grief.
Tyler has written and illustrated one of the more relatable creative works about grief and loss and what lies in the aftermath for the living left behind. She explores her real-life losses through artistic metaphor, that while fantastical, are also deeply relatable.
In the early pages of the book, her character goes looking for a guidebook on how to navigate the land she has been given in “Griefville.” However, she comes to find out that no such book exists. And yet for the reader, The Ephemerata does serve as a guidebook for grief. I’m not stating that Tyler is telling her audience how to get through grief, but drawing on her own experiences, she shares relatable experiences that her readers can see themselves in. Because one of the things that grieving people desire is to know that they are not alone in their struggle to navigate the space they now live in. Tyler doesn’t only touch on the types of loss she has experienced, but she also discusses different kinds of loss and grief. And there is something so comforting about someone saying, “I am mired in this loss, but there are others out there also mired in their own loss.”
The Ephemerata: Shaping the Exquisite Nature of Grief by Carol Tyler is published by Fantagraphics and is available now.
