[HPforGrownups] Re: The importance of death /Harry and Cedric

[Karen]

No: HPFGUIDX 147349




Karen:
> How many times have we seen a child wiping
> > their face on their sleeve at a hurt? It's outstanding and if you
> don't
> > see Harry as deeply grieving then I think maybe you are missing
> these
> > small types of gestures in OoTP and in HBP.

Geoff:
I also find this very moving being a male who grew up in the "boys
don't cry" era. I can remember a little over twenty years ago when my
mother died having to confide six months later in a close friend that
I was worried because I didn't feel that I had grieved for her.

But the piece of writing which always gets to me on this issue is:

'The thing against which he had been fighting on and off ever since
he had come out of the maze was threatening to overpower him. He
could feel a burning, prickling feeling in the inner corners of his
eyes. He blinked and stared up at the ceiling.
"It wasn't your fault, Harry," Mrs.Weasley whispered.
(snip)
(GOF "The Parting of the Ways" pp.619-620 UK edition)

That I know how true can be - fighting to avoid crying and keeping a
stiff upper lip.

kchuplis:

Oh yes, that scene really kills me too. Interestingly enough, last night on
the Craig Ferguson show, he had a wake for his father who passed away this
weekend. It was a fantastic show. It was really all about grief and how we
process it. He had a grief counselor on and Amy Yasbeck his friend and the
recent widow of John Ritter. Craig mentioned how he feels embarrassed by his
emotions even, being a man, just as we've been discussing here, and the
doctor talked about how that is common as is the guilt people sometimes feel
that they are *not* more overt in their expression of grief. However, it is
so difficult for our minds to go there that it is just another mechanism by
which we cope, but that our human connections are the narrative of our lives
and we will go there to keep that connection but the thing that I went "BING
BING! Yes, that's exactly it" but that I didn't describe well the other day
is how when we are seriously grieved over a close loss like a parent or
child or sibling is that grief is like this connection, this little
container that is all your own and you don't want to share it or give it
away to anyone else. Amy Yasbeck was saying people come to you and say with
concern "how are you doing" but you don't wan't to talk about it, you don't
want to give that piece of you, that connection you have with the person who
died, away to anyone.  I think that is a perfect description. It is like
your last connection with this person and though you might have moments in
private where you let your emotion go, that grief is this "MY" thing and you
really feel like to give it away to others is somehow losing more of that
person. I know that is how I felt, I just didn't ever think of it in those
terms and I think JKR caught it really well with Harry, no doubt due to her
experience of losing her mother. In fact, I'm really becoming more and more
amazed at how well she has written about grief without any overtness.