Grief does strange things to people. Death, the idea of
death, the approach of death, the finality. Families fall apart when they
should pull together. They plot and weep and accuse when they should weep and
forgive and breathe. They can’t see the big picture. The big picture is a solar
eclipse that can only be viewed through a slit. The eye sees pieces and
slivers and thus the smallest matter becomes the whole. Battles are fought over
coins and clocks and ugly dishes. Things are broken and go missing. People are
cut off and left out.
Death does strange things to the living. They plug their
grief into books and houses, slippers and silver, a tobacco tin of
money and the pearls Nanna promised, and these objects light up, they blaze in
the dimness, they burn with a brightness that seems death-defying. In the dark, the grief-stricken are confused: Look, they
cry, there it is! There is my love who is
going, who is gone, you can tell by the light! There is my love, it is all I
have left, I must not let go.
Love is all they have left. They cannot let go.
