Bury Your Dead... and don´t forget to eat your breakfast!

by Amy

Bury Your Dead.

That is probably one of my favorite titles. Well, that one and THE LONG WAY HOME. Sometimes a title is a poem unto itself. This one is. Once you've read the book, you have only to think of the words "bury your dead" and emotions will come in waves. Or is it just me?

“You must believe me, son. Nothing bad will happen to you.”

Everyone makes mistakes. That’s a given.

It’s our behavior after a mistake has been made that defines the kind of person we are.

If – by Rudyard Kipling 

If you can keep your head when all about youare losing theirs and blaming you,
but make allowances for their doubting, too;
if you can wait and not be tired of waiting,
or being lied about, don´t deal in lies,
or being hated, don´t give way to hating… 

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

BURY YOUR DEAD is an emotional book. Gamache is in a pretty dark place throughout most of it. Part of it is grief. He’s grieving for lives lost and anyone who has ever lost anyone can relate. But there’s more.. There is remorse when decisions – even with the best of intentions and knowing the risk and responsibility – lead to actions that result in damage and, in this case, lives lost. And then there is the grief every leader – at least every good leader – has felt at least once in his life. The higher the level of responsibility, the greater the guilt when things go wrong.

It’s not only about regret. Gamache is a great role model because he goes above and beyond. He realizes, rationally, that he cannot save everyone all the time. This was actually the subject of a previous post and Nancy (“Hi, Nancy!”) reminded us, in her comments, that “Myrna had to remind him that Jean-Guy’s choices and consequences will be something he and Annie will have to address”. Nancy is right. He has a hard time accepting that emotionally – although he recognizes it rationally.

I think this book isn’t just about feeling responsible for the consequences. It’s about making peace with his humanity. With his mistakes.

Everyone makes mistakes. Some mistakes cost us more than others.

“Gamache stared down one dark, dingy corridor in the abandoned factory then down the other.
They looked identical. Light scraped through the broken, grubby windows lining the halls and with it came the December day.
43 seconds.
He pointed, decisively to the left and they ran, silently, toward the door at the end.”

As I started to write this, I was thinking of the things we cannot fix. I was thinking of how you can always bake a new batch of cookies if you’ve burnt the first one… and I was listing, in my mind, the things that cannot be fixed: battles that cannot be refought (or, better yet, avoided before they began), trust that cannot be recovered, operations that cannot be fixed in patients that died on the table… Then I realized that the first batch of cookies can’t really be salvaged, either. They cannot be fixed. You can start over, though. And, sometimes, you can learn from your mistakes. Or the mistakes of others.

One of the things I love about stories is that they allow me to learn from the lives – and the mistakes – of others. By living vicariously through characters, I am gifted with multiple lives and have the chance to experience things I might otherwise not experience. Experience – fictional or not – does not always make us wise. I believe we should try to harness it so it _does_ make us wiser…

In a sense, that is what Gamache tries to do in this book. His own life, his own story, his own losses, and his own mistakes are too recent and too painful to probe. So he probes another story. He decides to dissect the mistake of another leader, another man who also led men to their deaths. In trying to decipher another man’s reasoning, he is trying to come to terms with his own misjudgments.

“Avec le temps.

[…]They’d had quiet dinners together in front of the fire, they´d walked the narrow snow-covered streets. Talked. Were silent. Read the papers, discussed events. The three of them. Four, if you counted their German shepherd, Henri.And most days Gamache had gone off on his own to a local library, to read.Émile and Reine-Marie had given him that, recognizing that right now he needed society but he also needed solitude.”

We don’t usually like to dwell on our shortcomings. And I don’t think anyone truly wants to investigate their mistakes, what led to them or their consequences. It’s particularly painful when the results are dire – let alone catastrophic – and when atonement is not an option. It is even worse when it is public and you are judged – or justified – not only by your own thoughts, but by the audience of onlookers. It is bad enough when our mistakes hurt us, but it is devastating when others have to pay a price or when they cost us the loss of trust, friendships or even lives.

Armand Gamache is in pain through most of this book.

I cannot even begin to imagine the depth of his pain.

I have my own mistakes and regrets to contend with. On a side-note, I cannot say the word “regret” without hearing Frank Sinatra’s voice in my head singing, “Regrets, I’ve had a few…”. Now it’ll be stuck in my mind all day.

Some of my less than stellar decisions hurt no one but myself (like eating one – or ten – too many cookies). Others aren’t as easily dismissed and have cost me some sleepless nights. Worse. Some mistakes have hurt others. Those still give me nightmares sometimes. It doesn’t matter that they’ve been aired out, forgiven, and – when possible – been atoned. I still remember the hurt I caused. And it haunts me.

There are others that may not even be considered mistakes. In some ways, Gamache’s own experience falls into this category. We make the best decision we can with the knowledge we have available at the time. Urgency – as in Gamache’s case – sometimes gives us limited time to gain knowledge or to reassess our decision-making process. Sometimes, it is only in hindsight that the knowledge is available.

“That was often the equation, give up the few to save the many. From a distance it seemed so simple, so clear. And yet, from a distance you might see the big picture, but not the whole picture, you missed the details. Not everything was seen, from a distance.”

I have only practiced medicine for 10 years. In those 10 years much has already changed. Sometimes I learn something new and am reminded of a patient (or patients) for whom I made what I thought was the best decision, but now, in hindsight, if only I could go back in time... Nothing drastic. No lives lost. No severe consequences. Usually the outcome wouldn’t even have changed. As I write I am listing them in my mind and cannot think of one where the outcome would have changed. Maybe one or another would have had earlier behavioral interventions or something… I still feel guilty.

I can only imagine how Gamache feels.

I once saw a TED talk (Brian Goldman – Doctors make mistakes. Can we talk about that?) about mistakes in medicine and how doctors aren’t encouraged to talk about them. We aren’t supposed to fail. We aren’t supposed to make mistakes. But it is only in talking about them and airing them and assessing them and studying our own – and others’ mistakes that we can prevent them, make amends, or learn from our mistakes.

To err is human.

We do not need to ignore or cover up our errors, though.

While we do need to bury our dead, we need to grieve them and to make our peace with our role in their lives – and theirs in ours. We need marks. We need the headstones that remind us what those dead meant to us. The pain of loss can be important to make us aware of the responsibility we have towards those still around us.

We all make mistakes. Some mistakes are huge – but have few, or dismissible, consequences. Others are unintentional, small, apparently inconsequential, and lead to disaster. It is not the nature of the consequence that determines the weight and importance of the error. It is not being caught that makes it a sin. It is not discovery that makes you accountable.

We do need to forgive ourselves. But we cannot let ourselves off the hook too lightly or too quickly. We need to take time to assess our actions, our intentions, our motivations, and our reasoning. We need to evaluate the consequences of our choices. We need to rethink our steps and try to imagine different outcomes to different paths taken. Ideally, this is done before action is taken (although some people are paralyzed in trying to make the best decision and never make any decision at all). I believe, and there are studies to prove, that successful people and resilient people are not the ones who always make the best choices (I don’t think those people exist). They are the ones who take responsibility for their choices – and the consequences thereof.

“And while forgetting the past might condemn people to repeat it, remembering it too vividly condemned them to never leave.”

True forgiveness can only come after there is true understanding. Gamache understands this. He isn’t beating himself up in this book. He is giving himself time to heal. Then he is making himself relive it, bit by bit, and understand it… so he can come to terms with it and forgive himself.

“To be human is to accept ourselves just as we are, with our own history, and to accept others as they are.” (Vanier – Becoming Human)

It is only because he allows himself to retrace his steps and because he is humble enough to accept, and recognize, that he is human and susceptible to error – despite taking all precautions – that he realizes that while some things cannot be made right – Agent Moran’s life cannot be regained – there are things that can be amended. While Olivier will never be the same and the price he paid was, in a sense, higher than the mistake he made, Gamache’s error in that case could be amended.

Gamache became stronger physically after the raid. He was in better shape than he’d been in a long time. He worked at it. He was also stronger emotionally. He worked at that, too.

He is a good role model.

We all make mistakes.

It is what we do afterwards that make us who we are. 

Throughout much of the book there are many simple meals – most in local cafes and Émile’s home. Breakfasts abound. Much tea and café au lait is drunk throughout. I didn’t really cook a meal for this post. I did include some pictures of my own breakfasts (usually overnight oats – I always add a generous amount of cinnamon to the mix at night, and throw in some chocolate chips and fruit in the morning). Coffee and tea.