Summary of Everything All at Once a Memoir by Stephanie Catudal

By Justin Reese

DISCLAIMER

This book does not in any capacity mean to replace the original book but to serve as a vast summary of the original book.

Summary of Everything All at Once a Memoir by Stephanie Catudal

 

IN THIS SUMMARIZED BOOK, YOU WILL GET:

• Chapter astute outline of the main contents.
• Fast & simple understanding of the content analysis.
• Exceptionally summarized content that you may skip in the original book

 

Steph Catudal's memoir, Everything All At Once, is an intimate and evocative account of her grief and love during her husband Rivs's 84-day battle with lung cancer. Despite her initial love and stability, her father's death resurfaced, causing her to confront her past. The memoir is written with lush lyricism, highlighting the raw emotions and uncertainties of her life. It serves as a powerful reminder that healing can be found no matter how broken we are.

• Language: English
• Publisher: jUSTIN REESE
• Release date: Jun 14, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223292128

Book preview

Prologue

The narrator's father is driving down Highway 20 in a silver Dodge Caravan with his seven-year-old daughter in the front passenger seat. He offers her sips of Nestle's strawberry milk and Glenn Frey croons on an old mix tape. Six years later, the narrator's father is dying of lung cancer and the narrator is sitting in the same van. The narrator can still hear his coughing, which tears at their throat and leaves them gasping for breath on dry land.

Chapter 1

The narrator is awakened by a rolling thunder and a violent wind in their home in northern Arizona. They hear a cough from their husband, Rivs, who has been quarantined for the past seven days due to the coronavirus pandemic. The narrator tries to ignore the gale force of his illness and its sinewy escalation, but it pulls and stretches. The narrator used to love stormy nights, as they reminded them of the gas stove and roof they had reshingled a few summers earlier. The narrator and Rivs bought a home in Flagstaff, Arizona, with a thousand-square-foot post-and-beam backed by a half-acre lot of sloping clay.

They took turns serving tables at night, alternating roles between student and parent during the day. By the time Poppy was born, the scheduling contortionism had paid off, with Rivs making a successful career around endurance athletics and the narrator taking small jobs as a freelance writer. After Poppy's birth, Rivs asked if the narrator had ever heard of a company called H and M, and the narrator realized he was not joking. Rivs is an elite athlete who has been sponsored by one of the biggest retail clothing chains in the world, Rivs. Rivs' wardrobe is a variation of the same outfit he'd worn for almost two decades: brown leather boots, an earth-toned T-shirt, and a pair of faded Levi's he grew up wearing.

Rivs is a burly 170 pounds and stands six feet one inches tall, and his muscular frame was his own battleground. He understands that social media is a valuable tool in building a modern running career, so he chooses to work 9 to 5 in a clinic as a physical therapist instead. Rivs was a runner who was disciplined and honest with his nutrition. He raced aggressively, pushing his body far past normal human limits over the course of twenty-six miles and beyond. When he was eight months pregnant with Harper, he went for a run in the jungle that backed their rental house.

When he hadn't come home nine hours later, the narrator waddled out to find him, equipped with a headlamp, a sandwich, and a dry branch. He trotted out from a grove of mango trees, sweaty and smiling. The narrator was relieved but defensive, trying to hide the sandwich sweating in a Ziplock. Rivs had come home from a Grand Canyon run weakened from long miles on his feet. He had immersed himself in the canyon as often as possible, and the copper switchbacks were his place of reverence and communion.

Tonight, he coughs and coughs, reminding the narrator of how quickly things fall apart. The memory cries louder than any monsoon wind, a haunted tune of broken faith and metered time, of rattled windows and ruptured stillness on an otherwise peaceful street.

Chapter 2

The family was a middle-class family living in the suburbs of Montreal, and they made it a point to eat dinner together every evening. On that night, the family was seated around the kitchen table with a pan of roast chicken and a side of baked beans. Despite the family's dysfunctional lifestyle, they made it a point to eat dinner together every evening. Despite the family's dysfunctional lifestyle, they made it a point to eat dinner together every evening. Despite the family's dysfunctional lifestyle, they made it a point to eat dinner together every evening.

The narrator was comforted by their parents' faith in miracles and their father's promise to fight like hell. However, when the narrator realized that life was not fair and balanced, they