anticipatory grief

from the art of death by edwidge danticat

"we die containing a richness of lovers and tribes, tastes we have swallowed, bodies we have plunged into and swum up as if rivers of wisdom, characters we have climbed into as if trees, fears we have hidden in as if caves. i wish for all this to be marked on my body when i am dead. i believe in such cartography -- to be marked by nature, not just to label ourselves on a map like the names of rich men and women on buildings. we are communal histories, communal books." - michael ondaatje, the english patient

"i started reading c.s. lewis's a grief observed as part of my anticipatory grief. ('and grief still feels like fear. perhaps, more strictly, like suspense. or life waiting; just hanging about waiting for something to happen.')

each death frames previous deaths in a different light, and even deaths to come. during the time my mother was sick, i found myself crying uncontrollably over the deaths of people i barely knew. i attended a couple of funerals, of relatives of church members, or people from my husband's past, people i'd never even met. mid-sob, i would realize that i was imagining sitting in the front row where the family was sitting, but at my own mother's funeral. if it wasn't her coffin i was looking at, then why had i come? then i realized that i was rehearsing, so it wouldn't hurt so much when it was my turn."

"suicide was common among enslaved people who sought their freedom in the afterlife. they were transitions, spiritual journeys to places from their past, homes that had become idealized -- in their minds. suicide was also the most effective way of nullifying their designation as property. showing that they could decide whether to live or die was one way of affirming their humanity. . .

'dying voluntarily,' camus writes, 'implies that you have recognized, even instinctively, ... the uselessness of suffering.'

literature thrives on suffering. what creates tension and conflict in most works of fiction is some type of useful, even if initially seemingly senseless, suffering. and by useful i don't mean useful to the sufferer but to the writer of the story. we put our fictional characters through the wringer so that we might write (tell others) about it. if we are too afraid to let them suffer, or even die, then we might fail. we also write of our most painful experiences hoping that bringing these horrors to light might serve some greater purpose. our most humble, and perhaps most arrogant, wish is that our writing might help others feel less alone. our suffering, or our characters' suffering - be it internal or external, physical or psychological - is never wasted. it often directs us somewhere, even if inevitably to death."