The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion Read Free Book Online Page A

to keep the lost one alive,” their special ability to “explain and interpret the relationship that had existed between the patient and the one who died”? Were you watching
Tenko
with me and “the lost one” in Brentwood Park, did you go to dinner with us at Morton’s? Were you with me and “the one who died” at Punchbowl in Honolulu four months before it happened? Did you gather up plumeria blossoms with us and drop them on the graves of the unknown dead from Pearl Harbor? Did you catch cold with us in the rain at the Jardin du Ranelagh in Paris a month before it happened? Did you skip the Monets with us and go to lunch at Conti? Were you with us when we left Conti and bought the thermometer, were you sitting on our bed at the Bristol when neither of us could figure how to convert the thermometer’s centigrade reading into Fahrenheit?
    Were you there?
    No.
    You might have been useful with the thermometer but you were not there.
    I don’t need to “review the circumstances of the death.” I was there.
    I didn’t get “the news,” I didn’t “view” the body. I was there.
    I catch myself, I stop.
    I realize that I am directing irrational anger toward the entirely unknown Dr. Volkan in Charlottesville.

    Persons under the shock of genuine affliction are not only upset mentally but are all unbalanced physically. No matter how calm and controlled they seemingly may be, no one can under such circumstances be normal. Their disturbed circulation makes them cold, their distress makes them unstrung, sleepless. Persons they normally like, they often turn from. No one should ever be forced upon those in grief, and all over-emotional people, no matter how near or dear, should be barred absolutely. Although the knowledge that their friends love them and sorrow for them is a great solace, the nearest afflicted must be protected from any one or anything which is likely to overstrain nerves already at the threatening point, and none have the right to feel hurt if they are told they can neither be of use or be received. At such a time, to some people companionship is a comfort, others shrink from their dearest friends.

    T hat passage is from Emily Post’s 1922 book of etiquette, Chapter XXIV, “Funerals,” which takes the reader from the moment of death (“As soon as death occurs, someone, the trained nurse usually, draws the blinds in the sick-room and tells a servant to draw all the blinds of the house”) through seating instructions for those who attend the funeral: “Enter the church as quietly as possible, and as there are no ushers at a funeral, seat yourself where you approximately belong. Only a very intimate friend should take a position far up on the center aisle. If you are merely an acquaintance you should sit inconspicuously in the rear somewhere, unless the funeral is very small and the church big, in which case you may sit on the end seat of the center aisle toward the back.”
    This tone, one of unfailing specificity, never flags. The emphasis remains on the practical. The bereaved must be urged to “sit in a sunny room,” preferably one with an open fire. Food, but “very little food,” may be offered on a tray: tea, coffee, bouillon, a little thin toast, a poached egg. Milk, but only heated milk: “Cold milk is bad for someone who is already over-chilled.” As for further nourishment, “The cook may suggest something that appeals usually to their taste—but very little should be offered at a time, for although the stomach may be empty, the palate rejects the thought of food, and digestion is never in best order.” The mourner is prompted to practice economy as he or she accommodates the wearing of mourning: most existing garments, including leather shoes and straw hats, will “dye perfectly.” Undertaking expenses should be checked in advance. A friend should be left in charge of the house during the funeral. The friend should see that the house is aired and displaced furniture put back