Funny thing about books... I was reading Ruth Parks The Harp in the South for my book club and I wondered about a few of the factual points she made about Sydney in the thirties and forties. I was referred to the second volume of her autobiography Fishing in the Styx. I have really enjoyed reading this as it is not at all boring and is written in quite a lively and engaging style. I am nearing the end of the book and her husband, Darcy Niland, has just died on a heart attack. Her reflections on the nature of grief are among some of the most beautiful and poignant that I have read: When my husband died I handled grief very badly. People remarked on my calm or the capable manner in which I handled the innumerable complexities that follow a sudden death. I was unlikely to embarrass or distress them by weeping or throwing myself in front of a truck, and though their desire to console was genuine, they were secretly relieved. ‘You’re being wonderful’, they said. To be wonderful is to handle grief badly. And so I nearly died. In a way I did die, as one might die of shock after an amputation or a dreadful wound. My own character and disposition made things worse for me, terribly worse. Reserve, independence, stoicism are not the qualities needed in grief…. Our culture knows little about meeting grief head on. It has come to be our most impregnable Tower of Babel, the very symbol of non-communication. We stand about in tears, wishing we could assuage the pain of persons dumbfounded by woe, but mostly we don’t know what to say. Better to make no reference at all? Better, more tactful, to allow them to get over it in their own time? It is all kindness, and no help. Thus, thrown entirely upon oneself in a comfortless darkness, one has the choice either of being wonderful or falling to pieces. And if you have children and others dependent upon you, you cannot afford to fall to pieces. So mourning is not done, and the tears that run down inside turn to acid that may corrode your soul for years. I found myself in a strange country, where no one knew the way except my fellow bereaved.
Posted on: Fri, 28 Mar 2014 01:30:59 +0000
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