Good Grief

        
Grief top trumps is not an edifying sight. But somebody experiencing grief apparently demonstrates that they 'understand' your pain so it is therefore all the rage. I felt grief after David Carradine choked himself to death whilst tossing off, (you see, the trend setting Tories were into that way before Carradine and Hutchence made it look cool). So I now 'understand' your pain right?

Apparently not. There are, if the papers are to be believed, different levels of grief. For example, the pain felt from losing a family dog is slight when compared to the loss of say a sibling. On the scale of grief my Kung-Fu star doesn't seem to cut it.
I am regularly informed that the pinnacle of grief is the loss of one's offspring. Seemingly if this has happened to you, you have climbed the summit and are now free to 'understand' everything.

I wonder though if this top stratum of grief can be further sub-divided. Let's try these two examples.

1: A couple become pregnant. Following complications the baby is born prematurely weighing a tiny amount. After a week or so, before it has developed the ability to recognise and react to its father, to demonstrate personality or to form friendships, it dies. The parents try again and are successful in having another child. The distress of this incident is enough to cause tears when explained during a TV interview years later.

2: A couple raise their one and only child for 18 years. Through years of care-filled effort, love and expense they produce a young adult ready to make its way in the world and of whom they are rightfully proud. Later they receive the news that despite the top of the range body-armour they paid for themselves, their genetic future is now little more than a charred lump of flesh in a field hospital somewhere in Afghanistan. They strongly believe, and with good reason, this is due to a Scottish liar cutting the Army's helicopter budget and forcing their child to be sent on a journey in a Landrover instead. They are now too old to produce another.

Is there a difference in grief between these two examples? Does one trump the other? I would imagine so.

Perspective is everything. So we should be forgiven  if we struggle to feel GB's pain. He can cry us a river if he likes but history will still remember him as one of the more incompetent, vindictive and mendacious Prime Ministers in our history.

I didn't start blogging so I could comment upon the deaths of other people's children, but then I never ever expected to see the leader of my country exploiting such a death for votes. Really, how much lower have we to sink before this farce is finally over?