The Hierarchy of Grief.
Grief top trumps is not an edifying sight. But somebody experiencing grief apparently demonstrates that they ‘understand’ your pain. It is therefore all the rage. I felt grief after David Carradine choked himself to death whilst tossing off, (you see, the trend setting Tories were into that way before Carradine and Hutchence made it look cool). So I now ‘understand’ your pain right?
Apparently not. There are different levels of grief. For example, the pain felt from losing a family dog is slight when compared to the loss of say a sibling. On the scale of grief my Kung-Fu star doesn’t seem to cut it.
I am regularly informed that the pinnacle of grief is the loss of one’s offspring. Seemingly if this has happened to you, you have climbed the summit and are now free to ‘understand’ everything.
I wonder though if this top stratum of grief can be further sub-divided. Let’s try these two examples.
1: A couple become pregnant. Following complications the baby is born prematurely weighing a tiny amount. After a week or so, before it has developed the ability to recognise and react to its father, to demonstrate personality or to form friendships, it dies. The parents try again and are successful in having another child. The distress of this incident is enough to cause tears when explained during a TV interview years later.
2: A couple raise their one and only child for 18 years. Through years of care-filled effort, love and expense they produce a young adult ready to make its way in the world and of whom they are rightfully proud. Later they receive the news that despite the top of the range body-armour they paid for themselves, their genetic future is now little more than a charred lump of flesh in a field hospital somewhere in Afghanistan. They strongly believe, and with good reason, this is due to a Scottish liar cutting the Army’s helicopter budget and forcing their child to be sent on a journey in a Landrover instead. They are now too old to produce another.
Is there a difference in grief between these two examples? Does one trump the other? I would imagine so.
Perspective is everything. So forgive me if I struggle to feel your pain GB. You can cry us an entire river if you like but history will remember you as one of the more incompetent, vindictive and mendacious Prime Ministers in our nation’s history and barring a miracle your public abasement will still see you at the job centre come May.
I didn’t start blogging so I could comment upon the deaths of other people’s children, but then I never ever expected to see the leader of my country exploiting such a death for votes. How much lower have we to sink before this farce is over?
Old Slaughter
-
1
February 19, 2010 at 14:51 -
Wonderful.
*Applauds*
D -
2
February 19, 2010 at 14:54 -
Here Here.
A very good blog.
There are 2 articles that you might be interested in regarding part of this blog;
Have a read of this article dated 22/07/09
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/jul/22/british-troops-afghanistan-helicopters?FORM=ZZNR10
Then read this Article dated 15/12/09
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/defence/6816249/MoD-to-buy-22-new-Chinooks.html
-
3
February 19, 2010 at 14:56 -
a timely piece
there is no hierarchy of grief
but their are plenty of mendacious bastards who will use anything to further their cause. the only problem as I see it is that Brown has no need to go to a job centre, firstly, he’s above such things and secondly, his gross earnings courtesy of the taxpayer will ‘enrich’ him for life. he brings shame on my country.
-
4
February 19, 2010 at 15:53 -
A fantastic bit of blogging, well done sir.
Brown was never going to come out of this smelling of roses because of needless deaths attributable to New Labour’s foreign policy.
What was he thinking when he signed up to do that show?
My gut feeling is that he thinks the electorate don’t understand him so he’d use a Jeremy Kyle-esque platform so that he could communicate on our level.
The thing is we do understand him. And he’s a twunt. So no matter what he does he’ll never be able to endear himself to the population.
Why does he want to be liked anyway?
-
5
February 19, 2010 at 15:54 -
I hope lots of people read this.
Very well said. -
6
February 19, 2010 at 16:09 -
Sound of hammer hitting nail squarely on head.
-
7
February 19, 2010 at 17:12 -
Completely agree. There’s a lot to be said for a dignified silence. The time for his tears was years ago, not staged managed for an election. A man who never uses his children as props? Really! It’s beneath contempt to use a dead one, as just that!
-
8
February 19, 2010 at 17:19 -
‘How much lower have we to sink before this farce is over?’
I fear there may well be a good way to go yet.
-
9
February 19, 2010 at 17:43 -
As a Pole ( nearly 20 Polish soldiers died in Afganistan ) I think I have a right to give one sentence comment:
Why can not one see that Britain became multicultural on those funeral photographs? -
10
February 19, 2010 at 18:10 -
11
February 19, 2010 at 18:26 -
My daughter died aged 25. You are so right it’s frightening. I sincerely hope the despicable toerag to whom you allude reads your blog and hangs his head in utter shame.
-
12
February 19, 2010 at 22:16 -
Very eloquent – and a shame no-one has been brave enought to waft away the spin to make this point before. Thank you.
-
13
February 20, 2010 at 01:22 -
Tomek,
Britain (if you insist on calling us that) is not multi-cultural. The men that are dying are almost always from the same culture. It matters not if they come from the USA, or the UK, or Poland, or Norway, or Germany, or France, or Austria, or (I could go on, but you must have got my point by now).
White, European, Christian men are dying, by the bucketful, trying to oppose foreign aggressors, most of which are islamic.
Islam and the West… it’s like water and oil.
-
14
February 20, 2010 at 09:10 -
Yes.
-
15
February 20, 2010 at 11:26 -
“White, European, Christian men”
The British forces are most certainly not just made up of this demographic. Nor is the US. On any one of your four criterea. It is a shame to suggest otherwise:
White: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4220910.stm
Christian: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/5144526.stm
-
16
February 20, 2010 at 15:55 -
Old Slaughter,
I did not say they were, I said they were almost always, and of the hundreds that have died you can find one muslim, two black men and one white woman.
It is never a shame to tell the truth. It is, however, a shame to ignore it.
{ 16 comments… read them below or add one }