“The
bereaved cannot communicate with the unbereaved!"Iris Murdoch
I’ve been on a trip - a trip to see how
people mourned their loss! Did they feel the same as I did? Did they react the same
way as I did? Am I normal? Is this the normal behavior? And because of this
trip I have read (consecutively) five books on the dying, death and the loss. I
guess now is the time to wind up my journey and rest in the assurance that each
one mourns the loss his own way. There is no rule book and there are no rights
and wrongs. What made the realization dawn on me? The book ‘The Long Goodbye a
memoir’ by Meghan O’Rourke !
I started this book in search of answers. I
thought I would connect because this is a book by a woman who is probably as
old as me and who lost her mother when she was least prepared (are we ever
really prepared to see our parent die?). However, halfway through the book I shut
it in frustration, because she was going back and forth and back and forth. She
spoke of her mom’s death and then went back to when she was better and then
came back to the time when she was seriously ill. I shut the book and left it
in the corner and then after a few days picked it up again. Maybe I hoped for a
change in track or maybe more tears; I really don’t know! I stared reading and
once again shut it in exasperation!
Why did Meghan not spell it out? Why did
she toggle between stories and emotions? Why did it have to be only about her?
Then I realized, it was about her. This is her book about her emotions and her
loss! How could I have been so naive to think it would be different? If I were
to write a book on my loss; I too would probably sound just like this (albeit with some more drama..since I am known to be a drama queen)!
So do I recommend the book? Yes I do, for
those who are still striving to express pain in their loss. I’d recommend it to
those who want to read about loss and about feelings and expressions.
One paragraph that cliched it for me was
towards the end of the book; “With my mother’s death the person who brought me into
the world left it, a portal closing behind her, a line of knowledge binding her
body to mine in the old ways. Who else contained me, felt me kick, nursed me,
held the towel out to me when I got out of the bath... Who else do I share this
history with? No one. Because she is not here, I must mother myself.”
Meghan O'Rourke
#thelonggoodbye #meghanorourke #mourning
#loss #death #cancer #memoir #mother
