Grief and Loss

H Is for Hawk is a memoir, which means that author Helen Macdonald is able to employ all the emotional nuances of her own narrative voice to her descriptions of what happens when she learns that her father has suddenly died. Macdonald's father, a photojournalist, has had a positive impact on Macdonald all her life, so she feels his death acutely. Macdonald describes her grief-stricken days after his death in such minute detail that the reader is left with no doubt as to the effect the loss has had on her life.

Macdonald's attempts to reconcile her loss involve her decision to obtain and train a goshawk, a process that proves to be about as difficult as healing after a significant loss like that of her father. As Macdonald and her goshawk, Mabel, learn to trust each other, Macdonald also gains insight into the nature of grief and love.

Woven throughout Macdonald's memoir are biographical details of another falconer, the writer T. H. White, author of The Goshawk and The Once and Future King. In Macdonald's depictions of his difficult childhood and experiences at boarding school—and more importantly, with his experience of training and losing his own goshawk—she broadens the scope of her discussion of grief and loss into the realm of literary analysis and biography.

Patience in the Face of Difficulty

Macdonald describes her life after the death of her father in terms of a series of serious challenges. Her own professional life lacks stability, she lives alone, and her grief is all-consuming. She chooses a challenging distraction in training a goshawk as a way to manage her grief, and though Mabel inspires awe in Macdonald from the moment she is introduced to the bird, Macdonald quickly learns that the wild creature lives by her own instincts, which is what makes the training process so difficult.

In Macdonald's depiction of White's life, she mentions that he, too, faced difficulty after difficulty, first in his childhood when living with abusive and violent parents, and later in life when seeking connection in relationships with both humans and animals. White's resilience in the face of these challenges parallels Macdonald's attempts to heal with the help of Mabel, friends and family, and eventually, a doctor who prescribes Macdonald SSRIs.

For both Macdonald and White, patience—a lesson first imparted to Macdonald by her father—is key to their survival during a time of acute emotional distress. Both must exercise patience with their birds, and themselves, as they cope with the difficulties life has given them.

The Healing Power of Animals

Mabel, Macdonald's goshawk, is not a particularly cuddly nor domestic creature, but it is the hawk's wildness that gives Macdonald comfort in her time of need. Macdonald first takes on the challenge of training the hawk as a distraction from her grief, but soon, her relationship with the bird deepens, and she remembers what happiness feels like through her experiences with Mabel.

Macdonald also observes qualities in her hawk that she admires and wishes she had herself, like Mabel's single-mindedness and preference for being alone. In Macdonald's sadness, she longs for the ability to escape her grief and to be content in her solitary life, but her human needs are vastly different from those of a goshawk. In Mabel, Macdonald finds a constant companion, and she gains strength as the hawk gains confidence in her own hunting skills. Together, Macdonald and Mabel become better equipped to cope with the outside world.

Macdonald acquires Mabel when the hawk is still very young, and the responsibility of mothering a baby bird is a healing process for Macdonald after having lost a beloved parent. The name Macdonald chooses for the goshawk, "Mabel," comes from the Latin amabilis, meaning "lovable," and it is Macdonald's love for Mabel that enables her to come to terms with the loss of her father.