Grieving the Loss of A Loved One
Losing a single member of the family always leave stress and depression to the remaining loved ones. Depression typically affects how they think, feel, or even how they act. The World Health Organization reports that more than 300 million people usually are affected annually. The report also suggests that losing loved ones is the primary stressor. The paper explains to the reader that a death in a family of a household typically has a significant impact on the loved ones. Bartel manifests his argument by giving an example of a gentleman who obsessively grieves his wife. Kakot grieves and attempts to find a sense of the deeper meaning of life. Kakot, grieving the loss of his wife, sets out on a journey to heal and find the meaning of life after he is introduced to written numbers by the Norwegians on the Maud, he becomes obsessed with counting. Kakot takes a series of journeys in the story through grief, assimilation, isolation, and obsession.
The author brings a new idea about the effects of obsessive grieving. He states this type of grieving can result in a mental disorder. To avoid this impact, the deceased need to be comforted with truth and be convinced about the irreversible bitter truth. Kakot shares the death of his wife to different members of his tribe. He visits the shaman of the area and shares with him the whole story. However, the feedback he gets from the shaman is more comforting, although it is still bitter.
“Do not grieve much, my lad,” the shaman had said. Nothing can help your wife now. She has gone beyond the clouds like so many before her. There is nothing you or I can do about it. That’s how life is. It’s not for us to try to change it. Grief is part of life, just like joy…” (233)
Kakot’s trip to the shaman highlights the grief that he’s processing in the story. He is left alone in the family since his parents, brothers, and sisters had died, and now his wife, the only family he was left with, has also gone. Later, he almost loses his daughter to the same disease; she’s saved by the collaboration of the men on the Maud. The shaman suggested that Kakot should accept his fate, but he struggled to take it. His grief, with the fear of losing his daughter to the foreigners, progressive ways of the Norwegians, created an opening for him to obsess over the numbers. His obsession was his way of dealing with grief and attempting to answer the questions of life that have no answer.
Since he has decided that he wants to fade the memories of the losses, Kakot has to pass through some rituals. He is introduced to written numbers while on the Maud, a ship of a famous Norwegian explorer. Kakot becomes obsessed with the numbers, spending nearly all of his energy writing, counting everything he sees, and using all the scraps of paper he can find. He attempts to hide his seal-skin bag containing his notebook from himself, focus on playing with his daughter. He was so attached to her only remaining family, her daughter, that he even showed signs of being ashamed of his obsession. “The very spirit of those large ever-increasing figures touched him feverishly.” (227) Every time he runs out of scraps, Vistig gifts him a notebook to continue recording his numbers. Kakot begins to make a correlation between numbers, and the deeper meaning of life, the feeling he had when studying the numbers. This feeling also caused him to consider the people on the Maud as well. He questioned if the famous explorer possessed the answer to the mystery of the infinite numbers and all that could be counted. “Was there an end to that endlessness?” (237)
Kakot’s obsession with numbers and the meaning of life became severe enough that he lost focus on his job. As a result, he was essentially kicked off the ship, leaving his daughter behind on the Maud. He has no other choice but to return to his people. Surprisingly, the obsession with the numbers continues even after he remarries. The author states Kakot was too obsessed to know his wife’s name. He continued to fill his notebook and ponder the infinity of his numbers and did not need communication, no sense of guilt for the neglect of his daughter and new wife. His wife tells him about her expectancy, but Kakot responds to the possibility of conceiving a child with the thought only of balancing out the total sum of mankind, as someone else must surely be dying at the moment of birth.
Kakot is driven further into his isolation and obsession with numbers due to the fear of losing his daughter to the new culture and education afforded by Norwegians. He wondered if she graduated from a school in Oslo, would she ever want to return to her native land? A land with only a guaranteed life of hunger. When spring returned, the ship returned carrying his daughter, Mary. She already seemed distant and unable to recognize him. Again, he wondered how Mary would return to her native land after living like the Norwegians. Kakot left his daughter on the ship a final time, knowing he would never know hunger or cold again. Kakot is reminded of the loss of his wife while walking home from the ship, where he left his daughter. As he is thinking of the injury, Kakot realizes what he’s done to his daughter, leaving her on the boat. He questions if he was at fault for his wife’s death, another part of the grieving process. Kakot begins to release his tight grip on his obsession with numbers as he slowly wakes up from the fog of his grief. He realizes that he may be isolated and miss out on a connection with his wife and community.
Now is the time when Kakot realizes that his new wife was expectant after seeing the belly of his pregnant wife. This reminds him that he may be missing out on something. He abruptly wakes up and remembers that his wife has a name! This makes him realize that all this time, he was lost into the numbers and could not have time for her family. He decides to burn the number to protect any passerby from becoming obsessed with them in the way he had. The realization has made Kakot give up his choices to connect with his daughter. Also, he realizes that the last living reminder of his deceased wife was about to make him miss the birth of his next child. In response, his grief and obsession highlight the deep contrast between his search for meaning and the simplicity of life that needs no explanation.
Kakot takes a journey with grief. In his attempts at explaining the mysteries of life, “why must we lose our loved one?” he realizes there’s no need to count and explain everything. Enjoying being alive is all that is needed and essential to living humans. His journey with numbers allows him to learn a hard lesson.
Works Cited
Bartel, B. TAMMY. “Death ends a life, not a relationship: Family bereavement, relational grieving, and continuing bonds.” Unpublished Masters thesis, Trinity Western University, Canada (2016).