It does not seem meet that we should master grief ourselves, because part of its purpose seems to be to remind us that we are always part of a greater whole. Part of grief reminds us that we too dissolve and fade away, just as everything else in existence does. Mere oblivion. The alpha and the omega, at least in terms of human life. In between we may be impetuous and important. We may be potentates and imitate the shadows of the birds, boarding and swooping through skies of our own creation. Still we watch the shadows fall before us, becoming memories of a summer day.
Claudius reprimands Hamlet for persisting in his grief over his father’s death:
‘Tis sweet and commendable in your nature, Hamlet,
(Hamlet 1.2.87-92)
To give these mourning duties to your father.
But you must know your father lost a father,
That father lost, lost his, and the survivor bound
In filial obligation for some term
To do obsequious sorrow.
He is wrong to chide Hamlet thus, of course, making light of how deeply the terribly private assumption of mourning affects his nephew. He is also partly right, this murderer. Grieving is part of life. Loss of life part of the participation in life itself. Yet, everyone knows that it is not the easy part.
Some weeks we write out posts for the blog, and we can plan and work, or write for a time. Other weeks, we must travel to far places to be pallbearers for our own fathers. Obligation. Saying goodbye. Part of the beginning of missing someone forever. Even ghosts must have such weeks of sudden emptiness, and so they do. It makes for brevity, which in this case is not the soul of wit as much as it is the deepest core of memory and reflection when the last and biggest tree of the forest has finally fallen down.
So sorry to hear of your father’s passing. I hope your trip and grieving bear good fruit for you.
Thank you, Paul. It was very sudden, and it leaves that Forest a bleaker and emptier place, but it is sorting as these things eventually tend to do.
Good to hear, John.