Removing your existence from this world mustbe normal, seem acceptable in the Hughes family.
Nicholas existed in Alaska, a professor
of fisheries and ocean sciences, far removed
from London and the sealed off room he slept in
as his mother gassed herself in the kitchen,
far removed from the poetic lifestyle of his parents.
His father so beautifully wrote of his little son's eyes as
wet jewels - the hardest substance of the purest pain,
as I fed him in his white high chair.
Was the pain frozen on that childhood day?
Or was it the day his stepmother gassed herself
taking his four year-old stepsister with her?
Was the glorification of his mother's death
Was the glorification of his mother's death
the deciding factor or the notion that his father's
infidelities caused her suicidal anguish?
What made Nicholas entertain the irrevocable
thoughts before he hanged himself at age forty-seven,
removing his existence from the earth,
just as his mother and stepmother had before him.
(Nicholas Hughes, son of Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes, died March 16, 2009)
3 comments:
i remember reading that and it's haunted me ever since..so tragic..that boy taken innocence away before he even knew what it was and to live all those years only to follow in the footsteps of the two maternal roles.
very haunting..
(ON A HAPPY NOTE: Happy mothers day!!)
Or maybe it was that a child can never forgive himself for something that isn't even his fault.
very beautifully written...jorc
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