Memorial Days

I have read several novels written by Geraldine Brooks: one of them is a favourite of mine, yet another I barely tolerated. Perhaps that’s a sign of her brilliance and unpredictability as an author. Likewise, this personal memoir will resonate more with some readers than others.
 
Sudden death in the prime of life may be different from an expected outcome after illness or a slow deterioration in old age. Yet, even if one is fully prepared, one still feels the shock of loss, of a future cut short, the end of a lifetime of shared experiences, of highs and lows, joy and companionship, but perhaps also words not said. No matter how we lose that special person, we are never truly ready for the end.

The practicalities of death can overwhelm the grieving: funerary arrangements, financial and business affairs to sort being the hurdles everyone must deal with. Geraldine details the appalling way she heard of her husband's death from a frazzled doctor, how unsympathetic bureaucracy got in the way of her viewing his body, the ruthless attitude of insurers towards surviving spouses. There’s also the well-meaning crush of goodwill from others when you really just need space to be on your own. 
 
It was three long years after Tony Horwitz dropped dead in a Washington street before Geraldine fully started to grieve. She took herself off to the remote Flinders Island in Bass Strait, between Tasmania and mainland Australia, and found some peace in isolation, rediscovery and acceptance.

“… I understand that I have not been alone. I am reveling in this time because I am with Tony. In this solitude, finally, I can think about him undistracted. I can read his journals and commune with his thoughts. I can even do what I believed his death had denied me; learn new things about him. … Solitude has made this space for him.”
 
If you have ever lost anyone close – whether suddenly or not – there is much here that you may identify with and that will touch your heart. Geraldine also contemplates the bittersweet conflicts of belonging that only those who have international families with split affinities will fully appreciate.
 
 
Four stars.
 
 
amazon.com
 
amazon.co.uk
 
Dymocks Australia

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