Early in the book Joan Didion refers the pyschiartrist Karl Menninger’s work Man Against Himself, and his concept of exaggerated value. Exaggerated value, is a term that reverberated with a recognisable knell as I read it. Apparently Dr Menniger uses exaggerated value as an explantion for some suicides “…had an exaggerted value, so that when there was even a threat that they might be lost, the recoil of severed emotional bonds was fatal.”

I don’t know the fatal recoil of severed emotional bonds, but I am familiar with the, less deadly, stricken recoil of severed emotional bonds. That recoil is what I identify as grief with all of its miserable symptoms and sadness.

The two terms, emotional recoil and exaggerated value, allowed me to frame my reaction to Shortbread’s death. Sense making. I had invested an exaggerated value into one little dog, she was a Birthday gift from Mottsu – a link with the past. The loss of Shortie has left me feeling more alone than I have before, our little family pod of a couple and their two dogs is all but gone.

From the moment I first held Shortbread, as an unnamed puppy, I cupped her in one hand and gently protected my treasure. I was already afraid I would lose her, most of her life I dreaded her death. Of course dread was not my only emotion, it was present. I also adored her presence and being, we were sympatico each feeling nurtured by the other. We enjoyed a fabulous life my dog and me.

Is that what happens? Do we place an exaggerated value in people, pets, and possessions, the things we love most? I do, that’s why losing those special people, pets and possessions is so awful, so hard to bear. I’m grateful to Joan Didion who provides the words, in her pages, to give expression to the experience of loss.

Shelley explained her Dad has been on anti-depressants since being diagnosed with complicated grief after her Mum, his wife of 50 or more years, died. Apparently he couldn’t stop crying. If I were he, I might have had the same reaction. If happiness is going along where life takes you with a particular special person, then grief on the death of that person might be vast and enduring.

Complicated grief is also known as abnormal grief. Shelle’s Dad’s reaction doesn’t sound all that abnormal to me, but I wasn’t there. I can’t really say how he experienced his loss, I can imagine it. I also can’t understand how 5 or so years later, well after he stopped weeping, he is still on anti-depressants.

Something in me is offended by the term abnormal grief. I know grief is complicated, almost by definition. The loss of someone close changes everything.

I believe we are more resilient than we think we are, I know that was true for me. I didn’t always feel resilient but there was something strong willed in me that helped me to cope and continue. Grief is a persistent state, there is something unyielding about being in the grip of grief. Grief can also be unknown and frightening, many confided to me that they did not know if they could make it through what I went through. That’s where resilience comes in, I kept going. Call it resilience, whatever I drew on it was my choice to navigate through grief and loss as best I could, I did not give myself other options. I did not believe I had a physiological disorder that could be treated with drugs, I didn’t even think to seek medical advice.

Another concern I harbour about Shelle’s Dad is about his ongoing medication, he has been taking medication for more than 5 years now for his complicated grief, or should I say his deep and enduring grief. I know that antidepressants can take time to take effect, it can take a month or more before receiving a therapeutic effect. Antidepressants alleviate symptoms but do not address underlying psychological causes for moods. I don’t know about the continuation of antidepressant medication, and how long you might expect take treatment for. My impression was even after years, this was ongoing medication. Is that how it goes? Can you not resume life without medication at some time?

I am troubled by Shelle’s Dad’s story for many reasons. The thing that occurs to me is that grief is a time when you should ask very little of yourself and when others should not ask too much.

“The essence of emotion [is] the collection of changes in body state that are induced in myriad organs by nerve cell terminals under the control of a dedicated brain system, which is responding to the content of thoughts relative to a particular entity or event.” Damasio, A. R. (1994) Descartes’ Error: Emotion, Reason and the Human Brain. New York: Grosset Putnam Books.

Mottsu and I met on Cup Day 25 years ago. I have known him for 25 years. Wow, I think to myself, that’s a long time and an odd thought, but I have continued to know him after died. My relationship with Mottsu didn’t stop when he drowned. Our relationship didn’t stop or start with the presence or absence of either one of us, it is something between us, in a space that is harder to quantify than it used to be when he was here, and it still a special relationship.

Today is the first Tuesday in November, Melbourne Cup Day and this year I let my VRC membership lapse. For the first time in many years I am not wearing a hat on Melbourne Cup Day, I am not at the track, not drinking champagne, not missing the crowds… and I am smiling to myself as I write. Changes,and I’m happy today, in a quiet sort of smug and almost indescribable way. I am content with who I am, and how I am, I’ve placed a bet on The Cup race. I am happy with where I am today, and even happy with (most of) the trek that got me here.

Time passes and nothing stays the same, I grieve and I continue to consider myself as bereaved. Some say it gets better but it doesn’t necessarily get better. Part of me remains bereft, bereaved, and bewildered. I can’t count how many times someone has said that time heals all… and some wounds never heal. Time doesn’t heal,things change, nothing stays the same.

When we first formed, years ago, we planned to be a book club focused on the books we read together. We find that we do discuss books and often there are other things happening in our lives that draw us into a conversation more rewarding than talking about the book. That was the case yesterday with a significant life change unfolding for one of us whose husband had died, and her daughter – our loved Book Club convener and her Mum – have been plunged into grieving, that’s the experience we shared and talked about yesterday.

As they talked I was reminded of the heightened sense of feeling and emotion that comes with grief and how our ability for joy is not lost when grief floods in. Everything changes, each day presents its own challenges. You learn you can be more sad and more lost than you ever imagined, and there are amazing moments when laughter is the only possible response. The best analogy I know of, for this surprising unknown experience, comes from Joyce Carol Oates Memoir, A Widow’s Story.

I heard her speak about her book recently and when she spoke of the absurd and surprising things that happen during grief, she talked of things familiar and known to me. I was surprised and then reassured that they were part of her experience as well. Joyce Carol Oates described playing in King Lear, she felt she was playing out a tragedy with the script and the lines as they are supposed to be read but with such odd things happening it was sometimes like the Marx Brothers had centre stage. Some things that happened would almost only make sense if framed as a tragic black comedy directed by the Marx Brothers.

When your world is turned inside out by the death of someone close, normal takes leave, there is no normal to fall back on.

It’s an unexpected shared experience of some widows that such odd things happen when we can least put up any resistance, that we have to sometimes laugh through our tears and then wonder what the world will present us with next. One day and then the next. It was good to share our stories at Book Club.

Another shared experience, in my very small sample, is:

“Of the widow’s countless death-duties there is really just one that matters: on the first anniversary of her husband’s death the window should think I kept myself alive.” Oates, J. C. (2011). A Widow’s Story: A Memoir. New York: HarperCollins Publishers.

That’s why we have friends and book clubs, to share with and to be with, to help keep ourselves alive…

When I read that comment I immediately felt annoyed, on reading it again now I am less annoyed. I think it was the regret Hughes expressed that disturbed me. I am troubled that we harbour regrets after someone dies, and of course there are always regrets.

It seems to be a natural thing to be surprised by death. It is almost as if dying is something that happens to others, and there’s something unexpected in the experience when we are touched by death. I wait for death everyday, I still expect others to die rather than me, but I know it is around. It’s not that I’m dreadfully morbid but maybe realistically so.

Sometimes when the phone rings at night I answer with trepidation expecting sad news. I try to prepare myself for the unexpected. I am saddened by every loss but rarely surprised, and even less often do I feel regret about what I could or should have done.

It might be something I have come to terms with since Mottsu’s death. In the aftermath of the loss of him I felt incredible shock and surprise and regret, for almost everything I had and everything I hadn’t done. Grieving is different altogether to regret and it’s easier now, years later, to accept that people to go when it is their time.

Allan Jeans died at age 77, when exactly was Kim Hughes going to get to know him better? For me it’s an odd, uncomfortable, regret, and I can’t know what Hughes really meant from one brief quote in the newspaper.

Eulogies should celebrate, when eulogies are published and read, it is too late for regrets.

Much loved and much missed.

A number of people at the funeral said that although it was a sad occasion the service was special.

I recall a time Mottsu’s parents visited from New Zealand and we took them out for a special dinner to Jean Jacques, on St Kilda beach. Mottsu’s Dad ordered an entrée of mussels and he was disappointed. He was thinking of delicious New Zealand green lipped mussels, one of the largest mussel species, he was served little local Melbourne mussels. He was disappointed with the mussels, Mottsu and I were disappointed that he was disappointed. Things in Australia were never as at home. I love to tell that story whenever somebody mentions eating our little local mussels. For Mottsu’s Dad there was nowhere that compared to New Zealand.

I also remember dancing with Mottsu’s Dad at Mottsu’s brother’s wedding. We managed a reasonably synchronised shuffle. He shook a little, trembled with a little shake that arose from somewhere deep down. Dancing wasn’t something he did very much of.

I loved Mottsu’s Dad, shy tremor and all.

He was a truly good man, a father who lost his son too early.

A string of somewhat coherent thoughts cruised through my head and left me picturing Wally. I remembered him sitting by the car one day and shaking, his whole body trembling and his little face set with misery. I closed my eyes remembering dear Wally and the way he trembled in the world, and I sighed loudly releasing air. Longing…

I (still) grieve hard for Mottsu and today I am thinking of his (our) little dog, Wally. ‘There’s only one little Wally” we used to sing to the tune of Guantunamerra, “…one little Waaa-lllll-eeee, there’s only one little Waaa-lly.”

Wally was our dog, he was Mottsu’s dog, a one dog fan club. Let me tell the story behind the memory of him sitting by the car shaking.

The day we moved in to the big country house, Mottsu’s dream house the place from which he was going to build a new career and enjoy a tree-changed life, was a day happy on the surface and dark and swirling beneath that.

There was too much invested the house, too much money, too many hopes for a different life, Mottsu was grapsing at a future beyond depression. Maybe he had already lost his centre, I don’t know, I think he was battling the high seas of depression and was helpless to make headway.

The morning of the move, we packed up one house and waited for the movers with their truck. I stuffed the car with loose bits and items, the pieces not secured in boxes. Mottsu drove off, our precious flotsam pushed up against the car windows, he went to get the key, drop off the bits, and was to be back before the movers had loaded their truck.

Mottsu left.
The movers arrived.
The movers loaded up the truck.
No word from Mottsu.

I was overcome with a seemingly irrational fear. A full body wave of terror swept over me and drew everything out, I perched on the toilet seat seasick green, clinging to notion that I was being absurd, and at the same time ill with fear. This was three weeks before he left without coming home again. That sunny Saturday morning, my body sensed before my mind had formed the thought, that Mottsu might not come home again.

Mottsu drove up.

Relief broke out and I laughed, Wally wagged and we all piled into the car and followed the movers to our new house.

We spent the day unpacking, sorting and putting things into place.
Amid the boxes and mess I didn’t see Wally for most of the afternoon, I found him outside sitting close to the car and shaking.

Wally just wanted to go where we went, he wasn’t going to be left behind. The mood of the move was distressing, a big exciting move to be celebrated with an unnamed darkness underscoring it all. Our new home was supposed to be a safe place, with paddocks and views and dreams filling every room. Somewhere below the visible reality things didn’t feel so welcoming.

Wally picked it all up, sensed the shadows and trembled, he wanted to go home, to our regular city home, I did too.

I miss Wally and his big little dog heart, his love and his fear. I love and love, I grieve. Still and on and on. The price for loving well is grieving hard.

That’s just how it is, love well, grieve hard, long and hard – and on and on…

Rainy days evoke memories of Mottsu, maybe because I love how the rain falls and quietens a day. Everything shushhed, like the sound of car tyres on the wet road. I think those are days when you huddle in closer with someone, share an umbrella, shelter together. Rainy days and Mottsu and I would slip into a cinema for the afternoon. Rainy weekend evenings we’d cook, bake, roast, time in the kitchen warm and safe, nurtured. Together with nowhere else to be.

Memory days, are different to anniversaries and birthdays, or special occasions. Days when you perhaps have anticipated the remembering of someone who’s no longer here but you can just feel them present. They are days I feel more alone – if it’s possible to be more alone than everyday regular alone. Importantly I feel wistful more than bereft, and that’s comforting to recall.

He is quietly remembered and I am grieving differently. I like to remember him well.

Elspeth Thompson left a note: “I’ve fed the dogs and put the heating on so that you won’t be cold. I’m sorry. So very sorry. But I’ve gone to the lake with a bottle and pills. I love you. I love Mary.”

Frank Wilson, Elspeth Thompson’s husband, writes about coming to terms with her death accepting the incomprehensible and “the unbearable burden of loss“.

Depression doesn’t play favourites.

“Every 15 minutes someone in Australia attempts suicide. Every 4 hours someone… succeeds. One desperate life lost because that person felt they had no one to turn to.

Ninety percent of people with physical illness gain access to ready good quality care in Australia; only 35 percent of those with mental illness do.”

Vasek, L 2010, ‘The Secret History of Me’,The Weekend Australian Magazine, June 26 -27, p.18.