Getting to two things about grief

I have been much more aware of grief recently, especially in media.

Two things combined this weekend that have influenced my thoughts, but also I appreciate the way they have come together.

Often with the books that I read and movies I watch, there is an order that feels right, and then they end up working together. A lot of the thinking about grief was because of movies that I had watched because of a reaction to some comments on the Oscars, though when I watched them was largely related to when they became available to me.

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2023/05/movies-woman-king-and-till.html

In the reaction to the murder (and I use "murder" deliberately) of Jordan Neely, some were bringing up the "bystander effect" for why no one intervened. This misunderstands both that situation and the murder of Kitty Genovese, which is the lens through which people tend to view the bystander effect.

One thread about that led to a documentary, The Witness, that I watched Friday night. 

https://twitter.com/chimeracoder/status/1654520961096351750

https://www.npr.org/2016/06/16/482313144/the-witness-exposes-the-myths-misconceptions-of-kitty-genoveses-murder 

I was already familiar with what the media got wrong about the case, but if there is more to learn, I would like to learn more.

In the documentary, Kitty's younger brother Bill talks to various witnesses, people who knew his sister, and even the son of his sister's murderer. 

That meeting was particularly interesting in terms of how trauma affects us. Bill Genovese saw "bystanders" trying to get out of the draft, signed up for Vietnam, and lost both of his legs. Steven Moseley was taunted as a murderer's son and really wanted to do good; he became a minister.

What struck me most was the interactions Bill had with his siblings, and their discomfort over his digging deeper. Their mother's grief led to an early pattern of protection, where you could never talk about the murder. Years after both of their parents are gone, that pattern is still there. You learn that Kitty's nieces and nephews know very little about her.

Bill - perhaps still incapable of standing by - keeps digging. You don't see every step, but at the end there is a family gathering, with the telling of stories and laughter, and it seems to be a relief.

The final piece was reading an article about the writer who worked with Prince Harry on Spare.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/05/15/j-r-moehringer-ghostwriter-prince-harry-memoir-spare?

It is really more about the process and the writer's history, but there was this part:

That imperious Windsor motto, “Never complain, never explain,” is really just a prettified omertà, which my wife suggests might have prolonged Harry’s grief. His family actively discourages talking, a stoicism for which they’re widely lauded, but if you don’t speak your emotions you serve them, and if you don’t tell your story you lose it—or, what might be worse, you get lost inside it. Telling is how we cement details, preserve continuity, stay sane. We say ourselves into being every day, or else...

I had a second thought about silence. Ghosts don’t speak—says who? Maybe they can. Maybe sometimes they should.

This is a lengthy process to get to understanding anything about grief, but I include it because there are things all around to help us. We should listen for them. Healing is possible.

So this is what came to me:

We have to be willing to bear the pain of loss to have the joy of loving.

With our knowledge of resurrection and eternal families, we should be able to do that. 

I don't even think those are particularly profound, but it's the feelings along the way.

That's why the process matters.

And in about three months there will be two more books read, and perhaps more there, or in a completely different direction.