On Loss

A while back, I wrote a longish series on how death is used in fiction. At the time, I was somewhat dismissive of the subject. Or maybe academic is a better word. But recent I've suffered an unexpected bereavement within my immediate family, and that's brought me to thinking about death from a different angle. Principally, the reaction to it.

I won't go into too much detail, but I will say that I was suddenly confronted by a wave of cliched emotions after the incident. I didn't think I'd feel them, but I did. It was a shock to see why all those cliches emerged in the first place. There was the shock after the initial discovery, the rush to try and do something to help, the sudden resignation when the paramedic declared that nothing could be done, the pushing through a growing wave of emotion, and then later phases of sadness, shock and crying.

I realise that everyone's experience of grief is different. Hence the sheer number of different types of grief portrayed in fiction when you start looking beyond the surface level Hollywood slow-motion segments. But on a basic level, there is a single thing that remains; disbelief. There is that feeling that this is all a terrible dream. Or a surreal nightmare. Or maybe some gigantic prank.

Death and reactions to it also depend on context. In a place where death is more common, such as many third world countries or some levels of current society today, there is still a culture of grief but there is a slight hardening of the soul towards death. In war, things would be different. There, death is a reality faced almost every day, so the death of a colleague may be seen as less of a shock. Still a shock, but less than an unexpected death in peacetime.

I'm afraid this is all I can write on the subject. Death is a part of everything, hence its place in fiction. But that doesn't make it easier to deal with.