Mind your languageMedia This article is more than 8 years oldWhen Dad died, language was my therapy
This article is more than 8 years oldGary Nunn‘Words are meaningless at a time like this. Nothing I can say will make it any better.’ Don’t be so sure
There’s a poignant line in the brilliant recent Brit flick X + Y when Jo Yang expresses her sorrow to the lead character (Asa Butterfield), who has autism, upon learning that his father is dead. “Why are you sorry?” he asks earnestly. “Don’t apologise. It wasn’t your fault.”
My own dad died suddenly in March. It’s the first time I’ve dealt with the grief caused by losing a close family member – and language played a surprisingly important part in the process.
Language and words have never felt so paradoxically important and meaningless at the same time. As anyone who has lost a close family member will know, the kindness can feel overwhelming. Everyone wants to tell you how sorry they are and check how you are before you’ve even really figured it out yourself. It can feel hard even to cry; there was a strangled sob consistently sitting in my larynx. It feels surreal, but their words make it real for you as you hear yourself articulating gracious responses to their condolences. I realised that there’s much love and warmth around me and I took more comfort from that than I anticipated.
Often people will start by saying “Words are meaningless at a time like this” or “Nothing I can say will make it any better.” I think they do this as a form of apology for the stock phrases we use every time someone dies. The phrases may be cliched, but in this case it’s not at all irritating. It all helps.
There’s an endearing delicacy around death which sees something strange happen to our language. We’re so politely fearful of sounding blunt that we make death a taboo and the language we use to express ideas around it becomes over formal or uncharacteristically euphemistic. It all comes from a very well-meaning place.
Your bluntest atheist friends will say how sorry they are that your dad has “passed over” or “passed away”. Even though neither of us believe in life after death or spontaneous human combustion. It’s the kindest and most forgivable form of semantic insincerity.
Similarly, your most colloquial mates will lapse into the sweetest formalities in offering “deepest condolences and sympathy upon the passing of your father” – a loving, considered departure from their usual linguistic casualness. It’s both strange and blanket-warming to hear such care being taken around their language at a traumatic time.
The polite death vernacular requires us to use the term “lost” when it is, literally speaking, a misnomer. Dad isn’t lost. I know exactly where he is. He’s dead, and people are vicariously sad. It still sounds briskly blunt, even to type it, but there it is.
The Guardian style guide advises: “die is what people do in the Guardian (not ‘passed away’, ‘shuffled off this mortal coil’ or any other euphemism)”. Sounds to me like a dangerous office to work in.
A word I see often in Australia when a high-profile person dies is “Vale name” – it’s used by Australian Twitter users about as often as British tweets use “R.I.P.” – an interesting international difference.
Whether my dad is valed or invited to rest in peace, whether he “died” or “passed away”, whether he’s “lost”, “gone” or “at rest” – what I do know is this: those who claim words are futile at such times are wrong. We can quibble over euphemisms, polite cliches or formalities but words, at a time like this, are at the height of their power and usefulness.
When my sister asked if I’d deliver Dad’s eulogy, it was the most profound and potent use of words I’ve ever been required to write. I laboured over every syllable, every phrase. What could be more important than summing up a person’s entire life, and only having words to do it? I woke up in the middle of the night, replacing perfectly fine words with their synonyms to ensure the tone was just right and I did him justice. It was, simultaneously, stressful and cathartic. Language was my way of dealing with Dad’s death.
It was a fitting way to cope. Dad had been the person who gave birth to my love of language, words, expression, imagination and stories. He nurtured this passion by reading me my nightly bedtime story. I recently confessed to my sister that he’d read to me for a shorter time than he would her – but afterwards he’d sneak back into my room for a surreptitious second round. This was because my sister was a daddy’s girl and wanted to monopolise his attention. I just wanted the stories.
But it was Dad who gave me them. We read every Roald Dahl book twice through – on the first round, him to me and on the second round, me back to him. We started with The Twits, went on to Dad’s favourite, The Witches, and through all of them to Danny, the Champion of the World – the way he made me feel about myself; especially when I was immersed in words.
It was this love of words, used judiciously, that led me to write this Guardian piece one Fathers’ Day. I used the tools Dad made me love – words – to let him know just how much I appreciated and loved him when he was alive. This feels more important now than I can ever have imagined.
Some words are less useful: the fixation with “how did he die?” felt infinitely less significant than the response to “how did he live?”. “Cheer up! Don’t cry!” are well-meaning phrases. But feeling sad is as important as feeling happy; imploring someone not to is not always the wisest choice of words.
From writing the eulogy to writing this very piece, language has been my counsellor throughout what has been a tough time.
Words can feel redundant when someone dies, but don’t trust that feeling; in the end, they’re all we have for each other.
R.I.P. Dad.
Gary Nunn is a regular contributor to Mind your language. His posts appear on the last Friday of every month. @GaryNunn1
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