What I’d Like to Say to Joan Didion
How does a part of the world leave the world? How does wetness leave water? ~ Rumi
I’m reading Joan Didion’s book, “The Year of Magical Thinking,” which is about the sudden death of her husband while their only child was hospitalized and gravely ill. When my brothers, Jim and Dan, died four years ago everything I thought I believed about life and death came into question. My understanding of death was reduced to that of a child’s, but I wanted to understand and to penetrate the mystery of it. My desire for understanding manifested in the reading of many books about death and the grieving process.
After my father’s accident this past October and while he was in the hospital, I picked up Didion’s book as though I had signed up for a refresher course on my study of death. While reading, I braced myself for the worst, losing my dad, which ultimately did happen.
As I understand it, Didion’s book is a personal exploration into the pathological symptoms of grief. The underlying premise of the book is that while she logically understands death, there is an irrational part of her that does not. She re-tells how she analyzed every detail of the night her husband slumped over with a heart attack at the dinner table, hoping to discover a different ending. Months after his death, she couldn’t bring herself to give his shoes away, thinking what? That he might come home and need them.
My study of death began because I wanted to find proof that I would see my brothers again. And so, I understand firsthand Didion’s magical thinking, and to it I add a further question: Is it any stranger to think that a loved one can return from death than it is to accept that they died in the first place? Isn’t the vanishing as fantastic as the idea that they might return from it?
December 13th, 2005 2:33 pm
Colleen asked: *Is it any stranger to think that a loved one can return from death than it is to accept that they died in the first place?*
I don’t know if I can answer your specific question Col, but I do have faith that we, as a species, are growing towards something beyond the ordinary five senses. Perhaps when we have reached that place, our loved ones will be able to return… they, only walked through a different door. Sounds like a good book.
Kathy
December 13th, 2005 3:24 pm
Odd that I should find my way to your site today and to this specific post – such grief and loss in my own world lately. I’ll be sure to come back and visit…
December 13th, 2005 3:34 pm
My favorite story about death was told by a Unity Minister at the funeral of my best friend. He likened it to a sea voyage in a large ship. As our loved one glides over the ocean to the horizon, and we can no longer see them, they are approaching someone else, who sees them not as leaving, but as arriving. Who is to say that the same ship cannot re-appear?
December 13th, 2005 4:07 pm
That is a beautiful concept.
December 13th, 2005 4:57 pm
I loved Joan’s book. And, I think, your question even more.
December 13th, 2005 5:34 pm
I believe that those in Christ who die here on earth simply, as Judy put it, sail on arriving in heaven. I’ve always tried to picture what heaven is like. It may be different for each person, I just don’t know, that is the final mystery. But I know that knees and backs will no longer ache, bodies decimated by cancer will be restored, memories destroyed by Alzheimer’s will be whole, we will never be tired or hungry or thirsty and the music of heaven will fill every corner with soft magnificent sound. I think that the best part is that no matter how wonderful or glorious or perfect I can imagine it to be…..it will be even better than that….infinitely better than anything I could ever possibly imagine. Now, that is hope!
December 13th, 2005 7:37 pm
Wow. You are speaking a language that at one time consumed my soul. Am I MommaK today? nah. Just Poopie.
December 13th, 2005 11:02 pm
It truly is. It takes my breath away even to think about seriously.
December 13th, 2005 11:08 pm
I agree with your question. When I run through things over and over in my mind, I know it’s because, somewhere back there, part of me thinks that I will find a different outcome. It’s the finality that is so hard to accept.
December 14th, 2005 8:00 am
Colleen – I think you’re right, both hard to believe. I hope you are doing well.
December 14th, 2005 2:52 pm
So true, Colleen…It’s all impossibly difficult and in my own experience each time I’ve lost someone dear to me, mother, father, sister, beloved friend…it is unique in some ways and the same, in other ways. With my Dad, I think the most immediate thing (that followed the initial feelings of grief over this loss), weeks and months after he died was that I wanted to call him on the phone, and couldn’t…that was the very painful reminder that he was indeed, dead. There are so very many differences too, in how I experienced each person’s death in ‘real time’….I mean, I actually watched my mother take her last breath after weeks and weeks of ‘vigiling’, and years of illness; with my sister, it was a phone call with no warning of any kind in regards to what happened that led to her death…and the same with my father…and everything in-between…with dear good friends…but, ultimately grief, for me, always ends up with dealing with the loss of that person and wherever that takes me, you know?
December 17th, 2005 10:59 am
(Initially tried to post on 12/16) About a week before my friend Helen died I picked up and read Kubler-Ross’s On Death And Dying, to prepare myself as much as I could.
I also find attractive the concept of Mexico’s Day of the Dead, which celebrates the souls of the departed visiting living relatives. It’s a holiday of love and celebration.
August 26th, 2006 8:05 pm
my name is colleen 😀
and that’s my birthday! i found this by typing “Colleen needs” like u have on this site. how ironic