In my book of essays that I've been in a mad rush editing the first draft of (a collection on grief and trauma) I have an essay on Hamlet, insanity and me. I love the play Hamlet. There's something about it that mesmerizes me.
Then the night of the Oscars, I finally watched Hamnet when I couldn't stream the Oscars live due to a network issue. At first, I thought it started a little slow. Then soon, I was all in. I fell into the movie like I was diving into a pool. I stayed in it. Weeping. All of my sadness about life omnipresent.
The young boy who dies, this is not a spoiler at this point, is a twin. His fraternal girl twin sister is dying of the plague. He comes to lay with her and comfort her. He sees death and decides to trade places with her and be brave as his father (William Shakespeare) told him to be when his father left for London. Then when Hamnet dies, he's shown in a dark place all alone, crying out for his mother.
Is this what death is like? It was terrifying. I was weeping and praying he would find a way out of the darkness to the light. And in our realm, his mother, the witchy woman who married Shakespeare, is beyond devastated. For Shakespeare, life moves on though he clearly grieves deeply as well. But for her, nothing is ever the same.
Then Shakespeare makes and stages his play Hamlet, about a melancholy Prince. The father is a mere ghost of a man. And I will stop here with my description. You have to see it. It moved me beyond words and it showed that the way to work through the grief and find the light in this realm is by putting one's blood on the page and stage.
It is everything you see. Just everything. The only way through. So I do.
