Years ago, when I was in high school, we read The Good Earth, by Pearl S. Buck. I don't remember it very well, just bits and pieces. But more recently I discovered a children's book of hers, The Big Wave. It is about two rural Japanese families (the two young boys are good friends), and the aftermath of a big wave that hits the island.
"I don't think Jiya can ever be happy again," Kino said sorrowfully.
"Yes, he will be happy someday," his father said, "for life is always stronger than death. Jiya will feel when he wakes that he can never be happy again. He will cry and cry and we must let him cry. But he cannot always cry. After a few days he will cry only part of the time. He will sit sad and quiet. We must allow him to be sad and we must not make him speak. But we will do our work and life as we always do. Then one day he will be hungry and he will eat something that our mother cooks, something special, and he will begin to feel better. He will not cry any more in the daytime but only at night. We must let him cry at night. But all the time his body will be renewing itself. His blood flowing in his veins, his growing bones, his mind beginning to think again, will make him live."
"He cannot forget his father and mother and his brother!" Kino exclaimed.
"He cannot and he should not forget them," Kino's father said. "Just as he lived with them alive, he will live with them dead. Someday he will accept their death as part of his life. He will weep no more. He will carry them in his memory and his thoughts. His flesh and blood are part of them. So long as he is alive, they, too, will live in him."
Other civilizations' thoughts about mourning make a lot of sense to me.
Today, I may be mourning a loss. I may cry a lot - maybe all the time. But tomorrow, I will not cry so much. And over time, I will get back to living. Kino's father assured me of that.
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