Grief leaves an imprint on those who experience it. Some can survive his deep grief, others cannot. In The Secret Life of Bees, by Sue Monk Kidd, she explores the effect of grief on the main characters. The novel opens with fourteen-year-old Lily Owns grappling with the knowledge that her mother was dead because she, as a baby, picked up a loaded gun and accidentally shot him. She flees her abusive father in search of answers about her mother's identity. Lily hitchhikes to Tiburon, South Carolina; the location is written on the back of a picture of the Black Madonna – one of the only possessions she has from her mother. There she finds a pink house inhabited by the Boatwright sisters who are African-American women making Black Madonna honey. The Boatwright sisters have had their share of heartbreak with the deaths of two of their sisters and the racial intolerance they faced despite the passage of the Civil Rights Act. Sisters Boatwright and Lily Owens have different methods of coping with grief; internalization, ignorance and forgetting are some of the ways they cope, with varying degrees of success. They discover that they must live beyond their grief or it will tear them apart. August is Boatwright's older sister, and she is the one who copes best with grief. She experienced the suicide of two sisters, but she managed to maintain her optimism and perspective, unlike June or May. August lets go of his grief through religion. She is the leader of a group called the Daughters of Mary, a group of African-American women who worship Our Lady of Chains. August "manifests the wisdom and protection of the Madonna, balancing June's excessive intellectual qualities and May's excessive emotional qualities...... middle of paper...... life in all its perfect imperfection. Grief played a significant role in the lives of the Boatwright sisters and Lily Owens. They each encountered death, injustice and sadness. Grief marked and left an imprint on each of them. Grief proved fatal for May. August knew that grief was just another aspect of life; that we had to accept it and then leave it in the past. June and Lily have learned not to let grief rule their lives. Life is not inherently good or bad – events are not just joyful or painful – it is glorious in its perfect imperfection. Works Cited Brown, Rosellen. “Sweet Child.” Review of books by women. Flight. 19. No. 7. Philadelphia: Old City Publishing. 2002. 11. Print. Kidd, Sue Monk. The secret life of bees. New York: Viking Penguin, 2002. Print. Milin, Ira Mark. Ed. “The secret life of bees”. Novels for students. Flight. 27. Detroit: Gale, 2008. Print.