"Sisters and brothers...how many may you be?"

The poem I want to talk about next specifically targets the death of a sibling.  It used to be a simple question, “How many kids are in your family?”  Then, after losing a sibling, the present tense in are becomes problematic. 

Before losing Josh I always answered that question with “five.”  Jeremy, me, Ashley, Jeff, and Josh.  Then, after Josh’s death, answering that question became awkward.  If I say “five” now, is it misleading?  If I say “four,” then I’m doing Josh a disservice.  He’s still a part of the family, right—even if he isn’t physically here?  Or maybe I should be totally upfront and say, “I have three surviving siblings, and one who passed away.”  But then again, a lot of times that’s too much information, and bringing up the death of a sibling tends to make a polite conversation turn awkward.

That’s why I was so glad to have this poem to turn to.  I read it for the first time before Josh’s death, and I thought it was sweet.  It wasn’t until confronted with that now-awkward question of sibling statistics that the poem took on true meaning for me.

This poem is called “We Are Seven,” and was written by William Wordsworth in 1798.  In it, an adult and a child disagree over how many siblings the young girl has in her family.

--------A SIMPLE Child,

          That lightly draws its breath,

          And feels its life in every limb,

          What should it know of death?

          I met a little cottage Girl:

          She was eight years old, she said;

          Her hair was thick with many a curl

          That clustered round her head.

          She had a rustic, woodland air,

          And she was wildly clad:                                    10

          Her eyes were fair, and very fair;

          --Her beauty made me glad.

          "Sisters and brothers, little Maid,

          How many may you be?"

          "How many? Seven in all," she said

          And wondering looked at me.

          "And where are they? I pray you tell."

          She answered, "Seven are we;

          And two of us at Conway dwell,

          And two are gone to sea.                                    20

          "Two of us in the church-yard lie,

          My sister and my brother;

          And, in the church-yard cottage, I

          Dwell near them with my mother."

          "You say that two at Conway dwell,

          And two are gone to sea,

          Yet ye are seven!--I pray you tell,

          Sweet Maid, how this may be."

          Then did the little Maid reply,

          "Seven boys and girls are we;                               30

          Two of us in the church-yard lie,

          Beneath the church-yard tree."

          "You run about, my little Maid,

          Your limbs they are alive;

          If two are in the church-yard laid,

          Then ye are only five."

          "Their graves are green, they may be seen,"

          The little Maid replied,

          "Twelve steps or more from my mother's door,

          And they are side by side.                                  40

          "My stockings there I often knit,

          My kerchief there I hem;

          And there upon the ground I sit,

          And sing a song to them.

          "And often after sunset, Sir,

          When it is light and fair,

          I take my little porringer,

          And eat my supper there.

          "The first that died was sister Jane;

          In bed she moaning lay,                                     50

          Till God released her of her pain;

          And then she went away.

          "So in the church-yard she was laid;

          And, when the grass was dry,

          Together round her grave we played,

          My brother John and I.

          "And when the ground was white with snow,

          And I could run and slide,

          My brother John was forced to go,

          And he lies by her side."                                   60

          "How many are you, then," said I,

          "If they two are in heaven?"

          Quick was the little Maid's reply,

          "O Master! we are seven."

          "But they are dead; those two are dead!

          Their spirits are in heaven!"

          'Twas throwing words away; for still

          The little Maid would have her will,

          And said, "Nay, we are seven!"

I was surprised to learn that at the time Wordsworth wrote this poem, he had not experienced the loss of a sibling.  It wasn’t until 1805 that he would have a first-hand experience with this awkward question.  I wondered how Wordsworth had hit the emotions so spot-on, and then I recognized that childhood deaths were, sadly, rather common at the time.  Wordsworth fathered six children in his lifetime, and he lost two of them in 1812.  Catherine was a few months shy of her fourth birthday, and Thomas was six.  Wordsworth, even as the 28-year-old bachelor poet of 1798, must have been surrounded and touched by such loss.

The first time I read this poem was in a college British literature class.  The discussion surrounding it involved catering to childhood innocence.  The man needs to just let the little girl live in her innocent fantasies because the world and all its realities will crash down on her soon enough.  One day, she’ll figure out that the real answer to the question involves only living siblings.  Since I was a student who needed credit and had about 700 pages of reading per week, I dutifully took notes, regurgitated the information on the test, and only spent a few minutes (maybe not even that long) thinking about my true opinion on the issue.

That all changed when I found myself in the shoes of the little girl.  There I was, confronted with the friendly get-to-know-you question of family basics.  “How many brothers and sisters do you have?”  If I counted Josh and answered “four,” was I delusional like the little girl?  Should I face reality like the man in the poem wants and only count the siblings who are physically present? 

I had to side with the little girl.  If I only counted living siblings, I wasn’t facing reality, I was rewriting it.  Siblings aren’t possessions that you can have and lose.  They’re not gone when they’re gone.  They shape us, help create us, and become a big part of who we are.  That lasts forever.

If I could take that test over, I would not answer with the rote recitation of the teacher’s analysis.  I would point to the famous fairy tale of “The Emperor’s New Clothes.”  Sometimes, it’s the adults who live in their fantasies and the small children who see the truth.

We are five.

Dealing with Death in the Wizarding World of Harry Potter

Dealing with grief is a surreal experience.  It makes us feel very separate from the world, but at the same time, it brings us together in one of the most profound ways a human can experience.  JK Rowling honestly and poignantly shows both effects in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.

If you haven’t read the fifth Harry Potter book yet, shame on you.  I’m also going to ruin it for you.  Sirius dies.  This is difficult for Harry, who has grown up without a significant father figure and had started looking to Sirius, his newly discovered godfather, as a protector and role model.  Harry finally has the promise of familial happiness—away from his wretched aunt, uncle, and cousin—when it all gets torn away.

Sirius’s death is a bit strange, so it requires some explanation.  During a battle with the Death Eaters, Sirius gets hit by one of Belatrix’s spells, and he falls through a veiled archway in the middle of the room.  As readers, we later come to understand that this is a doorway between the living and the dead.  The unique thing about this scene is that we’re not sure what’s going on.  Sirius just fell through a curtain.  He could be okay.  He’s right through that doorway, after all, and not too long ago, we heard voices back behind that veil. 

Rowling successfully gets the reader feeling that confused sensation that our loved one is just an arm’s reach away, when really they’re in a place we can’t get to just yet.  In doing so, she also beautifully ties in the belief that death is not the end, and does so without getting religious, preachy, or even overly generic.  Although she received some criticism for this, I appreciate her way of handling it.  One thing that every major religion has in common is the belief that death is not final, whether it be the Judeo-Christian belief in heaven and hell, the eastern belief in rebirth and nirvana, or one of the many other explanations found in the world’s religions.  Most people in the world believe that something comes next, so it’s easy for any reader to plug her own beliefs into the wizarding world discussions on the same subject.

I also appreciate that even in Rowling’s magical world, there are still some Muggle rules that the wizards have to play by.  One of them is that death is permanent.  Magic can do so much in her world: dishes wash themselves, travel is instantaneous, and a potion can heal a traumatic injury in a few hours.  The kids can blow up the attic, and a wave of a magic wand puts it all together again before dinner.  How easy would it have been to wave that same magic wand and bring back the dead?  This magical death-cure loophole is one of my biggest pet peeves with fantasy writing (for example, in the Dragonlance series, whenever a major character dies, Goldmoon shows up with her magic stick and resurrects him).  I am grateful to JK Rowling for staying honest about death while writing within a world with a lot ways to bend the rules. 

I’ve veered off on a tangent, so let’s come back to the dual feelings of isolation and togetherness, starting with isolation.  At the end of chapter 37, Harry is in Dumbledore’s office.  Here is an excerpt:

Somewhere far beyond the office walls, Harry could hear the sound of voices, students heading down to the Great Hall for breakfast, perhaps.  It seemed impossible that there could be people in the world who still desired food, who laughed, who neither knew nor cared that Sirius Black was gone forever.  Sirius seemed a million miles away already, even if a part of Harry still believed that if he had only pulled back that veil, he would have found Sirius looking back at him, greeting him, perhaps, with his laugh like a bark….

In the early stages of loss, it feels like the world stops for us, yet we can still see people going about their daily lives, oblivious.  I felt that after losing Josh, and others have described a similar feeling dealing with their own losses.  I think this is one of those universal experiences.  We look around and remember how carefree we were not so long ago, but now nothing seems normal.  How can everyone carry on as if nothing has changed when so much has changed for us?  Will we ever feel like that again?  In a single paragraph, Rowling captures that feeling of isolation.

She also does a great job showing how experiencing loss can bring us together in amazing ways.  At the very beginning of The Order of the Phoenix, Harry sees thestrals for the first time.  They’ve always been there, but he’s never seen them.  He learns that only those who have seen death can see a thestral, and until the end of book four, Harry had yet to experience loss.  This is a powerful symbol of how there are certain things that can only be comprehended by those who’ve been down the path of loss. 

At the end of the book, shortly after his conversation with Dumbledore, Harry meets up with Luna.  Luna has been hovering as a strong secondary character for a while, but this is the moment where she unexpectedly joins the leading cast.  She’s not a likely person for Harry to befriend because they are so different, yet their similar losses bring them together in an intimate understanding and form the foundation of friendship. 

Here is an excerpt from chapter 38.  The final feast is going on, and Harry finds Luna in the hallway as she looks for the things her fellow students have taken and hidden from her.  Harry offers to help, but she assures him that they’ll turn up in time.  She then asks Harry why he isn’t at the feast.

                Harry shrugged.  “Just didn’t feel like it.”

“No,” said Luna, observing him with those oddly misty, protuberant eyes.  “I don’t suppose you do.  That man the Death Eaters killed was your Godfather, wasn’t he?  Ginny told me.

Harry nodded curtly, but found that for some reason he did not mind Luna talking about Sirius.  He had just remembered that she too could see thestrals.

                “Have you…” he began.  “I mean, who…has anyone you’ve known ever died?”

“Yes,” said Luna simply, “my mother.  She was quite an extraordinary witch, you know, but she did like to experiment and one of her spells went rather badly wrong one day.  I was nine.”

                “I’m sorry,” Harry mumbled.

“Yes, it was rather horrible,” said Luna conversationally.  “I still feel very sad about it sometimes.  But I’ve still got Dad.  And anyway, it’s not as though I’ll never see Mum again, is it?”

                “Er—isn’t it?” said Harry uncertainly.

She shook her head in disbelief.  “Oh, come on.  You heard them, just behind the veil, didn’t you?”

                “You mean…”

                “In that room with the archway.  They were just lurking out of sight, that’s all.  You heard them.”

They looked at each other.  Luna was smiling slightly.  Harry did not know what to say, or to think.  Luna believed so many extraordinary things…yet he had been sure he had heard voices behind the veil too….

After a little small talk, Luna wishes Harry a good holiday and walks away.

…as he watched her go, he found that the terrible weight in his stomach seemed to have lessened slightly.

This is a great example of how we come together through separate, yet shared experiences.  Both of these young people have lost in a similar manner.  These shared experiences bring them together.  It’s also very comforting to Harry to see Luna, who has been through her grief and come to a sort of peace about it.  Although she can speak “simply” and “conversationally” about her loss now that years have passed, she hasn’t forgotten her mother and still feels sadness for this loss.  Harry sees all of this, as well as her hopefulness, and finds comfort in this honest conversation.

I admire JK Rowling for a lot of things, but the way she handles death and loss in her books is one the biggest.  I can tell by her writing that she’s been there.  She doesn’t sugar-coat, and she doesn’t lie, yet she still manages to be hopeful and comforting.  I’m sure she’s helped many readers—young and old—who identify with Harry’s experiences.  I know she made an impression on me.

Another Post About Grieving...and Poets.

I wrote about Josh in my last post and the memories of him that I hold on to.  Recently, a family very dear to mine lost their youngest son at close to the same age as we lost Josh.  This horrible tragedy has turned my thoughts once again to how we deal with loss like this.

I'm a firm believer in the uniqueness of grief.  There is no way that anyone can ever know exactly what another person is going through because people are unique and their relationships with one another are unique.  We can certainly empathize if we've been through a similar situation, but we can't know anyone else's experience exactly.  It's personal and identifying, like a fingerprint.

That being said, there are certain human experiences with grief that are universal, and a few writers and poets have grabbed ahold of those moments and turned them into something tangible, shareable, and relatable. 

Let's start with the beginning, the moment we receive the terrible news, and what we do next.  Seamus Heaney wrote a biographical poem called "Mid-Term Break."  In it, he recounts his own experience of being away at college and getting the news that his young brother had died.

Mid-Term Break Seamus Heaney

I sat all morning in the college sick bay Counting bells knelling classes to a close. At two o'clock our neighbors drove me home. In the porch I met my father crying-- He had always taken funerals in his stride-- And Big Jim Evans saying it was a hard blow. The baby cooed and laughed and rocked the pram When I came in, and I was embarrassed By old men standing up to shake my hand And tell me they were 'sorry for my trouble,' Whispers informed strangers I was the eldest, Away at school, as my mother held my hand In hers and coughed out angry tearless sighs. At ten o'clock the ambulance arrived With the corpse, stanched and bandaged by the nurses. Next morning I went up into the room. Snowdrops And candles soothed the bedside; I saw him For the first time in six weeks. Paler now, Wearing a poppy bruise on his left temple, He lay in the four foot box as in his cot. No gaudy scars, the bumper knocked him clear. A four foot box, a foot for every year.

I first read this poem a month or two after Josh’s death.  It resonated with me because of my recent experiences, and I felt connected to Heaney, who could so powerfully, yet simply, describe these experiences without editorializing.  Each image is so true.

He starts off just sitting there, helpless, which is a feeling I understand.  Everything is so final.  There’s nothing to do.  Just wait.  I remember driving home from the hospital after Josh died.  It was so strange.  We couldn’t do anything besides just go home.  Without Josh. 

I love the image of his father crying.  Men, especially tough Irish farmers like Heaney’s dad, don’t get to be fragile.  These events bring out different sides of people because we’re left so absolutely raw.  There’s nothing to hide, because only grief matters. 

The image of the baby cooing is also powerful.  Here is a child who has no idea what is going on.  I think young children are sensitive to mood and energy.  They can feel it when the adults around them are happy, tense, sad, angry, or loving.  This baby definitely feels something amiss, but life still goes on as usual for him.  I love that little glimpse of “normalcy.”  Images like that stand out when nothing is normal.

Then there are the awkward moments with people who have nothing but words.  Words are useless at a time like this.  Yes, I said it.  I meant it, too, so I’ll say it again.  Words are useless at a time like this.  I’m specifically talking about the well-meaning, loving clichés that arise.  “I’m so sorry.”  “If you need anything, let me know.”  “He’s in a better place.”  I’ll admit right now that I’m guilty of handing out the well-meaning, loving clichés.  As Sheldon Cooper might say, it’s dictated by social custom.  More than that, I think it’s discomfort.  We want to be there for our loved ones who are going through a horrible time, but we are uncomfortable with silence.  It’s the presence of others and their support that matters, not the words.  But we say them anyway.

Heaney beautifully writes the moment he sees his brother’s body for the first time.  “Paler now.”  Such simple contrast to the living boy Heaney saw six weeks ago.

But it’s the last line that gets me every time.  He sees such symbolism in that coffin of how everything is wrong with this death.  The rest of the poem seems clinical and numb, just a list of things he sees and does, but nothing about what Heaney feels.  The rhythm created by the rhyming and repetition creates that emotional release that we’ve been waiting for.  I understand that numbness, and I understand that moment when everything becomes agonizingly real.  I respect that Heaney cuts the poem off there, because that’s when his true, and personal grief, begins.

I absolutely love this poem, likely because I “discovered” it when I did.  I do think it takes empathy to really understand, though, at least on that human level.  I feel like I’ve walked in his shoes and seen through his eyes, and I project my own experiences onto the narrator of the poem. 

I’m not the only one who feels this way.  “Mid-Term Break” is among Heaney’s most popular poems.  I think it’s because he gets it right.  He takes us through those first hours, using images and experiences that most people have also experienced.  Perhaps they’re not in the same order or the right intensity, but I think very few people would fail to identify with this poem once they’ve been there themselves.  Heaney got it right, then he stops when his own unique experience would have to take center stage.

I’ll end this blog post now, since it’s getting long.  I have more poems I’d like to discuss that I think capture these human moments in the midst of loss, but I’ll break it up into manageable pieces.  It’s an interesting journey, and I hope you’ll walk with me and the poets who make something so surreal into something that can be shared.