The agonising grief of things left unsaid.

- The agonising grief of things left unsaid  | Daily Mail Online
She was able to fly into a rage at the click of fingers.

My mother died in the early evening of a warm spring day.
She died in my childhood bedroom, the windows open to let in the breeze, to the sound of wood pigeons and blackbirds that had far too much to say.
It had not been a happy week.
I work as a scriptwriter and was in a Writers Room for a new Danger Mouse series, surrounded by funny people, when I got the call to come.
I made my excuses, got into my car and drove back, dreading every mile I got closer.
My father, when I arrived, had been given a job by my mother.
I wasn't allowed upstairs to see her before I had watched a small DVD they had made.

He sat me down and put it on.
It was a black and white film of my parents on their wedding day.
They looked glorious.
My mother, a natural beauty, was in a short Sixties dress knocked up by my aunt on a Singer sewing machine the day before.
My dad was in his shirt sleeves, tie still on, and they were dancing together in the back garden of a Welsh miners' terrace house.
I could see washing on a line behind them.
What struck me was how happy they looked.
It destroyed me.

My father broke the news.
This was it.
The end had come.
We had all sat in a consultant's room a year before listening to a handsome man with salt and pepper hair tell my mother her cancer had returned and this time, there was nothing to be done.
She was going to die.

Christmas without tinsel.

"Sir, – At this time of year, families are dreaming of seeing their loved ones. The loved ones coming back by sea, or touching down on tarmac, flowing through the arrivals lounge of airports, warm-cheeked and teary-eyed, breaking the barrier to the warm homely arms of childhood. Or coming by car, snapping the car doors shut for a while and walking in the front door of old familiarity – the family home. This is miracle-making.

Eighteen years ago this Christmas, my first child of three, my daughter was very ill and she died early in the New Year. It was a meteorite falling on a family that was already rocked by loss and absence. Since then, our family has been cruelly pared back to one, myself, the mother, living alone at home.

At night I sleep to the rattles of an empty house. Even the wind has a faraway cry when it rattles at the window. My three children, my daughter and two sons died from Cystic Fibrosis, a genetic disease of the lungs. They lived a full and spirited life together, their illness did not define them. They were witty, intelligent, and gifted with homegrown talents that filled this home with music and liveliness. They expressed their true selves to their world of friends, and gave of themselves freely and honestly.

Losing a child is like having your heart torn out and your stomach emptied. Grief gets in the way of daylight, not to mention the nocturnal dark.

Christmas is a black surround, without tinsel, while the masses are plumping up the shopping streets.

But grief can be another day on the wheel, when paradoxically a blue sky can unveil and a white egret appears in the branch. I have named him Doy after my youngest son, whose pet name was Doy. He will fly and land with me as I walk beside the river in the valley behind our home.
Before Doy died, his dark eyes looked ahead and he said, “Look for me in the trees. I will be there in the trees.” – Yours, etc,

KATHLEEN KEYES,

Bray, Co Wicklow."

- ‘After the death of my children, Christmas is a black surround, without tinsel’

- Sunday with Miriam Sunday 22 December 2019 - Sunday with Miriam - RTÉ Radio 1 - Kathleen Keyes reads a letter.

Quotes of the day. Grief.

...(on grief) ...
And you do come out of it, that’s true.
After a year, after five.
But you don’t come out of it like a train coming out of a tunnel, bursting through the downs into sunshine and that swift, rattling descent to the Channel; you come out of it as a gull comes out of an oil-slick.
You are tarred and feathered for life.”

― Julian Barnes, Flaubert's Parrot.

Sheryl Sandberg's essay on Dave Goldberg's death and grief.

Sheryl Sandberg's Post on Late Husband Sets Off Meditations on Grief - NYTimes.com:
Sheryl Sandberg's essay on Dave Goldberg's death and grief - Business Insider:
Sheryl Sandberg - Today is the end of sheloshim for my beloved...
Here's the essay in full:
"Today is the end of sheloshim for my beloved husband—the first thirty days. Judaism calls for a period of intense mourning known as shiva that lasts seven days after a loved one is buried. After shiva, most normal activities can be resumed, but it is the end of sheloshim that marks the completion of religious mourning for a spouse.

A childhood friend of mine who is now a rabbi recently told me that the most powerful one-line prayer he has ever read is: "Let me not die while I am still alive." I would have never understood that prayer before losing Dave. Now I do.

I think when tragedy occurs, it presents a choice. You can give in to the void, the emptiness that fills your heart, your lungs, constricts your ability to think or even breathe. Or you can try to find meaning. These past thirty days, I have spent many of my moments lost in that void. And I know that many future moments will be consumed by the vast emptiness as well.

But when I can, I want to choose life and meaning.

And this is why I am writing: to mark the end of sheloshim and to give back some of what others have given to me. While the experience of grief is profoundly personal, the bravery of those who have shared their own experiences has helped pull me through. Some who opened their hearts were my closest friends. Others were total strangers who have shared wisdom and advice publicly. So I am sharing what I have learned in the hope that it helps someone else. In the hope that there can be some meaning from this tragedy.

“Бабадук”. Интервью с Дженнифер Кент.

Интервью с Дженнифер Кент. Кино на Фильм.ру:

В чем для вас главная идея фильма?

В том, что случается, когда не встречают свои душевные проблемы лицом к лицу, а стараются их игнорировать, выталкивают их в подсознание.
Меня очень волнует этот вопрос. Что случается с чувствами, которые не находят выхода?
Как меняет жизнь людей трагедия, которая пережита, но не прочувствована? «Бабадук» исследует эту проблему в форме мистической притчи.
Амелия так сильно пытается подавить мысли о потере мужа, что их негативная энергия становится самостоятельным существом, отделяется от героини и начинает ею управлять.
Что это за существо? Кто знает… То есть я-то знаю. (Смеется.) Я чувствую, что это за монстр.
Но я предоставляю публике право самой решать, как воспринимать мою картину.
Сверхъестественное это кино или психологическая драма – я свое мнение не навязываю. Но, как я уже сказала, для меня главное – то, что творится в душе героини.

Что это не просто хоррор. Я очень надеюсь, что фильм не только напугает зрителей, но и затронет их сердца, и они поймут, почему я придумала и сняла именно такое кино.
'via Blog this'

The Babadook. Jennifer Kent.

The Babadook director Jennifer Kent talks about drawing horror from life / The Dissolve:
"If it's in a word or it's in a book, you can't get rid of the Babadook."

"Jennifer Kent wants you to know that it’s okay to be afraid. If fear is a choice, the Australian filmmaker is convinced it’s dangerous not to choose it. All the same, if you buy a ticket to her first feature, she’s happy to take care of things from there.

Loosely extrapolated from Kent’s 2005 short “Monster,” The Babadook is the story of single mother Amelia (Essie Davis), whose husband was killed in a car accident on the way to the hospital when she was in labor seven years earlier. Amelia is hanging on by a thread when the film begins, and the increasingly violent behavior exhibited by her son Samuel (Noah Wiseman) isn’t making it any easier for her to maintain a brave face. But the façade doesn’t really begin to crack until Amelia reads Samuel the wrong bedtime story. The hardbound book Mister Babadook is the rhyming tale of an insidious, unstoppable monster, brought to life with pop-up illustrations that owe as much to James Wan as to Edward Gorey. Needless to say, The Babadook isn’t content to stay on the page.

A hit at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, where IFC Midnight quickly scooped up the distribution rights, The Babadook is a hauntingly humane portrait of grief and repression in the guise of a ridiculous creature feature. The Babadook is one of the scariest horror movies in recent memory because Kent possesses a preternatural command of her craft, but it’s one of the most satisfying horror movies of the decade because she has a rare faith in what the genre can aspire to and achieve. Her mastery of sudden jolts and slow chills is a pleasure to watch, and its refreshing to see a contemporary horror film with such a keen eye for composition. But Kent never loses sight of how scares work best when they’re used as a means to an end. Encouraged to confront our fears, The Dissolve sat down with the filmmaker in New York City, where The Babadook recently played in the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s New Directors / New Films festival.

[Editor’s note: This interview discusses elements of the film’s ending in broad terms; the spoiler-averse are advised to tread carefully.]