H is for Hawk

                  The book is about Helen's journey through dealing with the loss of her father by training a goshawk. Through the book, Helen makes references to T. H. White and his book, The Goshawk, where he embarks on a similar journey, albeit somewhat less successfully. White was raised by a neglectful mother and abusive, alcoholic father. He never learned how to form healthy, meaningful relationships with other people. As the story progresses, Helen dives deep into the ways that White's inability to build relationships with humans leads to the failure of his relationship with his hawk - they struggle against each other, hurting each other, fighting rather than building a partnership. Ultimately, he loses the hawk. 

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                 White’s story of disconnection and a desperate but failed attempt to create a meaningful relationship really stuck with me. This piece is about coping with loss, struggling to form or maintain relationships, and healing, or attempting to heal, through the formation of new relationships. White’s failed attempt to build a partnership is an example of trying to force an individual to be what you want and give you what you need, forgetting that that individual also has wants and needs.