Filed under: memory
He weathered the storm of public, communal grief with equanimity, revealing a generous understanding of the needs of the others who had known her, even in the midst of his own desolation.
In the weeks afterwards, he would move into a different space, one that he likened to a return to infancy. He was sailing with his parent’s on their fifty-foot yacht, and they travelled hundreds of nautical miles in the warm, tropical waters of north Queensland. He couldn’t take care of himself in any but the most basic ways, and he experienced something akin to a befuddlement bordering on mild psychosis. In this state, he repeatedly returned to the calm, unshakable conviction that she was still alive and on the boat somewhere; not hidden, but sometimes right there beside him, or at other times floating about in the rigging.
He endured this state intermittently for some days. At one point during this time he would steer the vessel through a literal tempest, a tropical storm that some might interpret as an ironic echo of the sudden advent of her death.
The situation could not persist indefinitely; in due course it reached its apogee on the pristine beach of an island located at the remote southern end of the Whitsunday archipelago. With that peculiar clarity reported by some sufferers of trauma, he realised he was facing a simple decision. He also knew, without any doubt, that there were only three possible courses of action.
