Powerful book is a thoughtful tour de force through love and grief

by Justine Doherty, Hawkesbury Gazette, 1 Jun 2016

An American-born Kurrajong resident’s new book on surviving the death of her husband uses her journeys in Antarctica as a structure to tell the tale of her protracted losing of him, and gradual recovery from his death.

‘Shards of Ice – Death, Survival, Grief’ was written after Minnie Biggs sailed to Antarctica to get away from painful memories of losing her husband of 47 years, Stephen.

Rather than a wallowing, it’s a response to great grief that makes you like the griever and realise she’s not asking for anyone’s pity. The book details her articulate and considered attempts to understand what’s happened and learn how to see the world anew from a solitary perspective.

Minnie is a good writer. When she spoke to the Gazette about the book she said that understandably “there is a lot about death and dying” in it, but it’s not burdensome.

“The most important thing is talking about it,” she said. Her descriptions of her frozen polar journey show she’s very good at living in the moment and finding joy in all sorts of things despite her great loss. You feel no fear for her mental health in the future.

The book is written in fragments, like the bergs slipping past her icebreaker on her polar adventures in 2009 and 2011. It’s like sitting on a train with a companion in an easy silence broken only when someone has an observation to make or a thought about something.

From very real, in-the-moment descriptions of Antarctica she will suddenly flash back to her last years with husband Stephen and thoughtful ruminations on her marriage. The description of his decline is a fascinating window into nursing someone in that situation.

She said taking so long to die (four years after his first turn) was “not nice”.  “You might think that there were all those extra moments to cherish, but after a while, a long while, no. It wore us down,” she says. She asks herself what picture of him she wants to hang onto in her head. “Certainly not the picture of his ending….not that wraith”.

When she speaks about the time after his death, the level of detail is moving. She talks about finding homes for his clothes, and finally tackling the freezer, which she realised she’d been avoiding, knowing there were all the special mini meals she’d prepared lovingly for him of his favourite things that he never got to eat.

Her little interjections about their marriage build up a picture of why she was so torn when he died. His commitment to her was absolute. “Having had one brief failed marriage, he was determined to make this one work. One of those rare men who learned from his mistakes… From the start, in fact from his lengthy and careful proposal, he promised he would support me in anything I undertook, even if it came to things of which he did not necessarily approve. He kept that promise.”

From Stephen’s commitment to her, she talks about the Antarctic explorers’ commitment to their men –especially Shackleton. She’s done her research and peppers her story with interesting facts about the expeditions there.

Subheadings throughout the book show how she’s grouped her ideas. Minnie has a musing on so many topics they’re handy if you’re trying to find one of her observations.

She had an interesting life. She married in 1962. She was from New York, he was from Queensland. In 1986 they went to live in Portugal. Then in 1998 Stephen “woke up one morning and said ‘I want to go home’” so they came back and settled in Sydney.

Minnie feels a strong connection with her 10 acres at Kurrajong where she’s lived for 15 years. “The land feeds my soul – I have a vegie garden and an acreage garden,” she said.

If I’m ever in the position of mourning a partner, I would want this as my guidebook, seeing how Minnie handled all the little reminders of them not being there anymore, and the things she found the hardest. Hers would be a strong guiding hand to take.

It is available at Wisemans at Richmond.