And so I wrote to Mme de Cambremer to decline, just as, an hour ago, I had sent Albertine away: grief had destroyed in me the possibility of desire as completely as a high fever takes away one's appetite . . . My mother was to arrive the following day. I felt that I was less unworthy to live in her company, that I should understand her better, now that a whole alien and degrading existence had given way to the resurgence of the heartrending memories that encircled and ennobled my soul, like hers, with their crown of thorns. So I thought; but in reality there was a world of difference between real grief, like my mother's - which literally crushes the life out of you for years if not for ever, when one has lost the person one loves - and that other kind of grief, transitory when all is said, as mine was to be, which passes as quickly as it has been slow in coming, which we do not experience until long after the event because in order to feel it we need first to "understand" the event; grief such as so many people feel, from which the grief that was torturing me at this moment differed only in assuming the form of involuntary memory.
That I was one day to existence a grief as profound as that of my mother will be seen in the course of this narrative, but it was neither then nor thus that I imagined it.
Marcel Proust, Cities of the Plain, pp. 795-796
First off, let me start with the conclusion of this passage. I cull out sections from Remembrance of Things Past for several reasons, ranging widely from their relationship to essential themes in the novel or life to sections which I just find extraordinarily beautiful. However, sometimes I also tag passages simply because Proust, as is his wont, is hinting at future actions. So, clearly, we have heartbreak to come.
Proust includes an interesting commentary on the difference between his mother's grief, "which literally crushes the life out of you for years if not for ever," and his own, "which passes as quickly as it has been slow in coming." There is a difference, obviously, between losing a grandparent and a parent, although both are painful. It seems to me that when a grandparent dies you lose part of the innocence and wonder of childhood as part of the unconditional love that grandparents give you that your parents never quite do, which means that when they die part of your childhood finally dies. Whereas when a parent dies the great wheel of life has turned, and, even if you're not thinking of it at that moment, you're now next in the queue; so, I would argue, you are also grieving for yourself and your diminishing future.
Part of the difference, I'm sure, relates to our clumsy (although not Proust's, clearly) use of language. We're imprecise and lazy, and few people are as imprecise and lazy in their language as I am, but I do try. For example, I always chide the kids, both my son and the ones who are passing through my life now, to be careful in their use of language, especially a word like "hate." I inevitably point out to them that they strongly dislike something, which is not the same as hating it. The other day I finished my discussion with this point, which I think is logically iron clad and impervious to critique: "Someday you're going to come to me and tell me that you hate someone and that you want me to help kill them. Now, I'm always happy to help, but I need to know that you're serious and that you actually hate this person more than you do meatloaf." Their response: ". . . OK . . . thanks . . . Mom!"
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