Sheryl Sandberg's new book a tale of grief, resilience

NEW YORK -- Though perhaps best known as Facebook's No. 2 executive, Sheryl Sandberg also is a mentor, a mother, a billionaire and an author. When her husband Dave Goldberg died suddenly in 2015 while they vacationed in Mexico, she added "widow" to the list.

"The grief felt like a void, like it was sucking me in and pushing on me, pulling me in, and I couldn't even see or breathe," she said in an interview with The Associated Press. "People who have been through things like this told me it gets better. And I really didn't believe them. ... I want other people going through things to believe it does get better."

Her new book -- "Option B: Facing Adversity, Building Resilience and Finding Joy," written with psychologist Adam Grant -- chronicles the loss, her grief and how she emerged from it with a new perspective on life.

A humbled follow-up to her first book, "Lean In," it's also a how-to, drawing from studies and the experiences of others to describe techniques for building strength and resilience and ways to support those going through hard times.

It quickly became the No. 1 best-seller on Amazon on Monday, the day it was published.

Sandberg also uses the new book to address what she sees as shortcomings in the career advice she offered women in "Lean In."

Surveying the world as a wealthy corporate executive rendered her oblivious to circumstances faced by less-fortunate women, she acknowledged. Not everyone can lean in; not everyone wants to.

"I didn't get it," she wrote. "I didn't get how hard it is to succeed at work when you are overwhelmed at home."

The most affecting parts of the book recount not just Sandberg's grief, but that of her children.

When she had to tell them their father died.

When, arriving at the cemetery for his funeral, they "got out of the car and fell to the ground, unable to take another step. I lay on the grass, holding them as they wailed," unable to protect them from their sorrow.

It got better, though slowly. Sandberg returned to work at Facebook in a haze, unable to summon her previous self-confidence.

"I couldn't understand when friends didn't ask me how I was. I felt invisible, as if I was standing in front of them, but they couldn't see me," she wrote, adding later, by staying silent in such situations, "we often isolate friends, family and co-workers."