As Ben O'Mara removed his dead wife's favourite novels from the bookshelf, a photo of her fell to the ground and a wave of guilt swamped him. The photo was of his wife with her sister in the 1980s, when they were toddlers. Her eyes, wide and bright, and her hair, blond and shaggy, looked just like their four-year-old son. But he felt no joy in seeing her beauty and genes passed on. Instead, he felt as though he was suddenly drowning. He couldn't breathe, his muscles locked, and nausea from panic rose in his stomach. In removing her books and discovering her photo, it was as though her ghost had seen him committing a heinous crime. A simple act that, in his grieving mind, demanded he go on trial for the terrible, selfish act of moving her books to the far end of the house to make way for his new ones.
O'Mara has talked with other widowers and widows about paralysing guilt. It can result from doing small, everyday things to better enjoy life after a spouse has died. Some have cried when grocery shopping alone or when going on beach holidays by themselves. Others have been overwhelmed with emotion on tentative first dates, years after the loss, or still felt heartbroken in a new home after moving cities for work. There has been a growing understanding of how guilt shapes life after the death of a partner. Studies show that grief is natural and inevitable after significant loss, and it often comes with remorse. Feelings of intense longing for a partner who is gone, a sense of failure, painful emotion, and the sense that a part of the bereaved has been lost are common.
The guilt's intensity can fade over time. It can help to try to work through it by finding ways of practising self-forgiveness and being open to talking with mental health professionals. O'Mara has found that the process is not easy or quick. Navigating guilt is unique to each person. However, he does know that recognising the stress that guilt may create and talking about it has been helpful. But there was more to feeling as though he had broken the law in reorganising his wife's books. Something that felt much bigger. Pulling out her paperbacks and carrying them with him through the house connected him to something weird and cosmic, something that came with great awe.
He believes the connection was to the fear and wonder from the thousands-year-old culture of the printed word: his unexpected, powerful encounter with the endless dance with death on planet Earth through physical books. Because books, in their form as well as focus, foretell with subtle and beautiful skill the death that comes for all humans. Jeff VanderMeer's science fiction horror books have well imagined the awe that comes from grief and loss for humans and the natural world they inhabit. VanderMeer was one of O'Mara's and his wife's favourite novelists. In Absolution, the latest novel from his Southern Reach series, he tells a creepy yet beautiful story about scientists exploring the wetlands of 'Area X'. The scientists are haunted by weird alterations of animals and nature, like they were relics from another civilisation, and by a decaying, terrifying future.
The relics from the marshes of VanderMeer's novel felt eerily like the photo of O'Mara's wife that fell from the bookshelf that day, and her books. He could not stop thinking about Absolution. Not just the way the book explores grief, terror and beauty amid environmental destruction, but also for how his novel suggested to him the degrading physicality of all things and their allure, including stories printed – the fading ink of their pages, the washed-out colours of their images. That despite books degrading, they still fascinated readers, who imbued them with such power over the present and possible futures.
O'Mara and his son read books together often – old and new, torn and well preserved. Most reading they do comes without sadness or guilt from grief as they go on living without his mum. His son enjoys books about dinosaurs and monster trucks, but particularly those about Halloween, ghosts and cats and witches like from Meg and Mog. O'Mara likes to think they have fun reading this way for the rollercoaster of emotion they go on together: the pleasure from their dark and beautiful colours; the jump scares from funny skeletons and zombies; the humour of ridiculously large pumpkins; and the enchantment of strange potions. It amazes him that he still laughs with his son at stories they've read time and again.
Reading with his son, O'Mara is reminded of the world of books his wife and he shared. He doesn't feel overwhelmed by guilt, though, or as though he's on trial for enjoying life without her. He's just amazed that books can be relics that offer such vivid connections between the past and present. Through books, falling apart with time – like us reading them – they find joy, fear, laughter and comfort. His guilt swells much less now, but he suspects it will take time to complete the reorganisation of his book collection. Perhaps some of his books will never find permanent placement. But he was able to store his wife's books in a safe place at the end of the corridor in their house, along with her photo, not far from his son's bedroom. Her books are there for when he is ready, and O'Mara too, to discover more about his mum's story. To learn more of what she loved about the world rendered through literature. Which authors inspired her. The strange horrors of language she encountered. To know better a memory of her brought to life through the fear and wonder of the printed word.
