To feel very uncomfortable about this Guardian article?

[KingscoteStaff]

Front page of the 'Family' section. A grandfather talking about his 21 yo granddaughter who has just committed suicide.

It just doesn't feel real. Could it be some sort of exercise in writing the most unsympathetic narrator ever?

Blanche, do you really think that silly 10yo strop, and the way he writes about it, has been put in as something "more treasured".

"Yet, within the 20-minute interval of the return drive, she’d subjected ecstasy to her typical revisionism. By the time she emerged from the back seat, the excursion had been converted into “the worst experience of my whole entire life”.
Once again, she’d consumed pleasure at the moment of delivery and then divested herself of its nutritional value, perhaps because something in her knew what followed happiness, and she feared it and pre-empted it with its inevitable consequence."

Treasured memory? Hardly the way it is told.

This is a silly pre-teen strop, the kind most of us deal with, it happened 11 years before she died, and he is still holding it against her. Who, if our grown children died tomorrow, would be raking up something silly like this from 11 years previously?

A difficult MIL dying and a young person suffering from mental illness who kills themselves very young are completely different scenarios. He doesn't seem to have had much direct contact with her.

The fact that it apparently gives you permission to be irritated with your MIL has no bearing on all the problems with it discussed here.

The way he expresses his love reflects the way my own felt

I can only repeat that I get no love from this at all. I don't think he even liked her or knew her very well.

Bloody hell.

Considering that he lived on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, he seems very sure of his omniscience.

Yes, as it is one of the moments he remembers.

No, as it isn't a pleasant memory, of her or for him.

Yes, as it is part and parcel of who she was....'typical revisionism' = normal behaviour for her.

Abiding memory of MIL: pissed as a fart, screaming at DH and BIL that if they got in her way, made her choose between her kids and her man they would lose.

Is that all I remember? Was it totally defining of her? No and No. But, given her suicide... no... wait!

According to Gloria my experiences and opinions are irrelevant here.

I shall bid you all adieu!

According to Gloria my experiences and opinions are irrelevant here.

I never said anything of the sort.

The fact that it apparently gives you permission to be irritated with your MIL has no bearing on all the problems with it discussed here. Then please, tell me what that sentence did mean!

I shall bid you all adieu!

I wish you wouldn't, but I wholesale understand why you would.

It's rather more likely that a 10 year old girl was terrified of a bird with a 6 ft wing span flying at her, and didn't admit it until afterwards.

There's not a crumb of love in that article.

iPost, you are thinking about an older person who was in a sense in a position of power over you and who made your life miserable. That is a very different power dynamic. This man is writing about his daughter's child, someone who (as others have pointed out) did not get to live much beyond childhood. And a lot of his anger is directed against her behaviour as a child.

I thought it seemed weirdly pointless iyswim, not to mention cruel to speak of the dead in that way. If it was to raise awareness or illustrate how this girl was failed by the system, I could see why he would write it.

To me though, it just seemed like he wanted a platform to slander this troubled child.

I meant that what you read into the piece - permission for difficult feelings about your MIL - doesn't mitigate, negate or cancel out all the significant problems with it - which is after all a very different scenario.

OurBlanche your posts have been insightful and for me a valued contribution to this thread. I cringed when I read that nasty post 'The fact that it apparently gives you permission to be irritated with your MIL has no bearing on all the problems with it discussed here.' - ouch.

Believe me, your posts have in no way came across as expressing a petulant response to a relative, far from it. Your wisdom and perception stands in stark contrast to to kind of person who could respond to your heartfelt posts in such an unpleasant way.

Bollocks!

What you are really saying is that my reading of it, the comfort I derived from it, offends you!

I meant iPost not you Blanche - I confused the two of you.

Sorry whathe My last post was so very obviously not in response to yours

What you are really saying is that my reading of it, the comfort I derived from it, offends you!

It doesn't offend me in the slightest, it didn't even occur to me to be offended. But as I said I don't think the comfort you've have personally derived from it reduces the significant problems with the piece.

I don't think it's that terrible. Grieving people feel anger. He may not have liked his granddaughter much, he may not have much empathy generally. It doesn't mean he's not devastated.

It's rather more likely that a 10 year old girl was terrified of a bird with a 6 ft wing span flying at her, and didn't admit it until afterwards

I was expecting the end of that anecdote to be that, and not in the least bit surprisingly, she had burst into tears.

The day was hot, the garden abloom with mid-July. Along the corkscrew path, Emma lagged behind, reportedly vigilant of insect life and its poisonous sting. To my backward glance she was luminous in the haze, joyous, incandescent and reckless as any rose

And that is a terrible piece of writing.

But as I said I don't think the comfort you've have personally derived from it reduces the significant problems with the piece. But I don't see those 'problems' and nor do others.

I'd go as far as to say that it is likely that the pieces you find most problematic are the pieces I find most powerful.

As I have said, 5 or 6 times now, it is all a matter of perception and nobody's interpretation is 'righter' than anyone elses!

whatthe that post was in no way intended to be nasty, and reading back I don't believe it is. If you choose to read it that way, that's up to you.

I don't see those 'problems' and nor do others

I know you don't. But that doesn't mean they're not there. I'd say the majority of thread can see them.*

*without going back and counting up.

Gloria you really, really didn't intend using the term 'irritated' to describe the complex range feelings about her MIL Blanche shared in her posts to be just a teensy weensy bit belittling? Allrighty then....

And that is a terrible piece of writing.

Quite dreadful.