Yesterday my mother and I went to an exhibition of Victorian mourning clothes at the Petaluma Museum. The most striking part of the display, aside from the beautiful beadwork, was a wall of eerie Victorian death portraits. The ones that creeped me out the most were of brothers and sisters. Sometimes children were made to pose with their dead siblings, who would be held in place by a stand or propped up in a chair.
I understand the urge to document things. I'm a blogger, after all, and blogging is the real-time creation of a personal archive. But some things, I don't know why you'd want to document them. Maybe just so you could remember your child's face? But ugh, your child's dead face next to their stiff, uncomfortable sibling.
My mother observed that it's amazing how much social mores change over the course of just a century or so. (Even the decade-to-decade changes can be astounding.) I'm glad that mourning clothes aren't mandatory these days, but I'm intrigued by the performative aspect of wearing them, and the possible solace to be found therein. I feel tempted to perform some kind of grief ritual for my past self... But I would want to do that in private, I think.
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