Bereavement: Julian Barnes and my old friend
One of our longtime friends, Donald, has lost his wife to an aggressive form of brain cancer, which took her in barely three months.
I was reading Julian Barnes' latest book, "Levels of Life", when I got the news. Barnes' book explores, among other themes, his grief following the sudden death of his wife, the editor Pat Kavanaugh, from the same illness.
That unstinting yet poetic exploration deeply influenced how I spoke to Don, when I learned what happened.
I had already underlined this observation:
"Early in life, the world divides crudely into those who have had sex and those who haven't. Later, into those who have known love, and those who haven't. Later still—at least, if we are lucky (or on the other hand, unlucky)—it divides into those who have endured grief and those who haven't. These divisions are absolute, they are the tropics we cross."
Don and I spoke at length one evening, on the phone, and I recalled this passage vividly:
"I swiftly realized how grief sorts out and realigns those around the griefstruck; how friends are tested; how some pass, some fail. Old friendships may deepen through shared sorrow, or suddenly appear lightweight. The young do better than the middle-aged, women do better than men...
I remember a 'dinner-table conversation' in a restaurant with three married friends of roughly my age. Each had known her for many years...and each would have said, if asked, that they loved her. I mentioned her name; no one picked it up. I did it again, and again nothing. Perhaps the third time I was deliberately trying to provoke, being pissed off at what struck me not as good manners but as cowardice. Afraid to touch her name, they denied her thrice, and I thought the worse of them for it."
He also finds the source for his pain, supplied in a letter from one of his friends, a widow:
"...she wrote to me, 'The thing is—nature is so exact, it hurts exactly as much as it is worth, so in a way one relishes the pain. I think if it didn't matter, it wouldn't matter.'"
And "it matters" because of how Barnes views love:
"Love may not lead where we think or hope, but regardless of its outcome it should be a call to seriousness and truth. If it is not that—if it is not moral in its effect—than love is no more than an exaggerated form of pleasure."
But grief, he says, "does not seem to occupy a moral space. The defensive, curled position it forces us into if we are to survive is more selfish. It is not a place of upper air; there are no views. You can no longer hear yourself living."
No surprise, then, that Barnes considers taking his life, but realizes, "insofar as she was alive at all, she was alive in my memory" and asks himself, "... how am I to live? I must live as she would have wanted me to."
Without Barnes' witness to the wildness and depth of his grief, I might have stumbled through a conversation focused on facts and details. But thanks to his magnificent writing, I was able to stay with my friend to reminisce about their love for one another, and the passage he had recently entered.
Conversations with bereaved friends grow more frequent. I hope to be present to each as he or she wishes—to not avoid mentioning the absent partner, as Barnes' friends (and some of my mother's) did, perhaps in a misguided wish to "not bring it all back".
It's a scary conversation when one is relieved of sure-fire comforts and clichés, but it's real, and it is just one of the ways we can take care of one another, as this generation faces its last decades.
I was reading Julian Barnes' latest book, "Levels of Life", when I got the news. Barnes' book explores, among other themes, his grief following the sudden death of his wife, the editor Pat Kavanaugh, from the same illness. That unstinting yet poetic exploration deeply influenced how I spoke to Don, when I learned what happened.
I had already underlined this observation:
"Early in life, the world divides crudely into those who have had sex and those who haven't. Later, into those who have known love, and those who haven't. Later still—at least, if we are lucky (or on the other hand, unlucky)—it divides into those who have endured grief and those who haven't. These divisions are absolute, they are the tropics we cross."
Don and I spoke at length one evening, on the phone, and I recalled this passage vividly:
"I swiftly realized how grief sorts out and realigns those around the griefstruck; how friends are tested; how some pass, some fail. Old friendships may deepen through shared sorrow, or suddenly appear lightweight. The young do better than the middle-aged, women do better than men...
I remember a 'dinner-table conversation' in a restaurant with three married friends of roughly my age. Each had known her for many years...and each would have said, if asked, that they loved her. I mentioned her name; no one picked it up. I did it again, and again nothing. Perhaps the third time I was deliberately trying to provoke, being pissed off at what struck me not as good manners but as cowardice. Afraid to touch her name, they denied her thrice, and I thought the worse of them for it."
He also finds the source for his pain, supplied in a letter from one of his friends, a widow:
"...she wrote to me, 'The thing is—nature is so exact, it hurts exactly as much as it is worth, so in a way one relishes the pain. I think if it didn't matter, it wouldn't matter.'"
And "it matters" because of how Barnes views love:
"Love may not lead where we think or hope, but regardless of its outcome it should be a call to seriousness and truth. If it is not that—if it is not moral in its effect—than love is no more than an exaggerated form of pleasure."
But grief, he says, "does not seem to occupy a moral space. The defensive, curled position it forces us into if we are to survive is more selfish. It is not a place of upper air; there are no views. You can no longer hear yourself living."
No surprise, then, that Barnes considers taking his life, but realizes, "insofar as she was alive at all, she was alive in my memory" and asks himself, "... how am I to live? I must live as she would have wanted me to."
Without Barnes' witness to the wildness and depth of his grief, I might have stumbled through a conversation focused on facts and details. But thanks to his magnificent writing, I was able to stay with my friend to reminisce about their love for one another, and the passage he had recently entered.
Conversations with bereaved friends grow more frequent. I hope to be present to each as he or she wishes—to not avoid mentioning the absent partner, as Barnes' friends (and some of my mother's) did, perhaps in a misguided wish to "not bring it all back".
It's a scary conversation when one is relieved of sure-fire comforts and clichés, but it's real, and it is just one of the ways we can take care of one another, as this generation faces its last decades.
Comments
Excellent post Duchesse.
Anon@8:30: Thank you so much for that observation. I have seen widowed friends trying to 'hold' the grief their friends bring them,
and Don spoke of that, too.
Susan: In this case, recalling my friend's wife's love for him would be accurate. Other situations are less evident; we have to assess what we know, and sometimes use tact.
And I agree that a person who has never experienced great loss may fall short in appreciating what a friend should say or do.
We see him from time to time and it is very evident that the grief is still raw...
Your post is excellent and deals with a sensitive issue which so many of us have trouble navigating and yet it is inevitable...thank you.
There is definitely a 'grief club'. My mother died while I was in my 30s and strangely enough, I had two friends who also recently lost parents. While our experiences were very different, there was also a level of understanding.
Still, I didn't actually want to talk about my mother and all the stuff we'd been enduring for the last years. I just wanted friends around, to show they cared etc.
One of the best responses was a friend who brought flowers round in person and just sat and chatted. She hadn't known grief but was basically a kind and caring person who actually fronted up in a tough time.
A friend of mine, like hostess's friend's husband, never really recovered after the death of her husband, whom she had devoted her all as a caregiver during his long decline from Alzheimer's (he was at least a decade older). Sadly, she died not long ago and it seemed inevitable given her deep depression and its effects.
We recall that you lost your sister in early adulthood, so alas you did have an early knowledge of "parallel" grief. I think the grief for a person close to you of your own generation - or worse still, the loss of a child - hits one in a way that the loss of a parent doesn't, sad though that always will remain. My father died when I was 15, but it affected my mother in a much more fundamental way, though of course I was sad and upset.
une femme: I have learned they let you know- but sometimes only after they miss what could have been offered. Getting better at it but it's still a mode of caring that I'm discovering.
Mme. La-bàs: When one tries to help a parent, its even more layered and complex than a friend. I found the book remarkable.
Susan: Yes, and chances are you will know that a child was loved.
Sissy: That is often a huge burden for the widow- "well meaning" remarks, especially clichés.
Leslie; What Barnes has said about losing his adored wife is also true when one loses a beloved parent or other relative. Yet even those who have not experienced it can show up to say they care.
hostess: Yes, inevitable and I believe we should not excuse ourselves from being there for our friends just because we don't know how to address the loss.
Eleanorjane; Just sit and chat, yes. I did the same for another friend, but with a bottle of wine (her idea). Even though I had never met her mother it was vitally important to witness this loss.
lagatta: Barnes has a lot to say about the term "grief work" but that aside, my friend is subsumed by sorrow, but able to get out and do things. When they married, his wife had with two teenaged sons,now adults. He is helping them build their business; in this way, he continues his life with her.
Fifteen is a very young age to lose a parent, and old enough to have so many memories.
Wishing everyone comfort. I'm grieving my father's death still,some 40 years later.