Death to Individualism: Tongan grief and togetherness
Since my grandmother Lupe’s death in November 2023, I’ve been collecting different experiences of people’s grief and have found great comfort in its universality. There are endless books, movies, songs, that capture the one guarantee we are afforded in life: people die, and those that love them, miss them. So I cried to Korean-American author Michelle Zauner’s memoir “Crying in H Mart”, relating to her mourning her mother before she even died. Desperately, I briefly turned to religion, listening to Elvis’ gospel albums, skimming through generic “Christians Grieve, Too” pamphlets. I watched Kamilaroi writer Nakkiah Lui visit her late grandmother’s home in St Marys and made myself cry about my grandma as well as the incompetence of the DCJ. More recently, I watched acclaimed Australian journalist Ray Martin’s SBS documentary series, “The Last Goodbye”, which explored the ‘taboo’ of death among Australians. As a Tongan, I’ve found this collective aversion to death in the West quite unrel...
omfg i didn't realise i had an account on this LOL my dp is probably from when i was like 10 but this is so beautiful sala :-)))) so happy to see you've been posting your writing on your blogspot as well lately!!!! And when you publish a book then what...
ReplyDeleteoh my goodnessss thank you SO much for stopping by jess!!! seriously i will cry. your encouragement and love keeps me going!!! MWAH XXX
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