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How writing skills can be transformed through a shared personal tragedy

By Angela Jones and Tara Brabazon - posted Friday, 5 September 2003


- Angela Jones -

The journey of a PhD student can be a daunting and lonely experience. This is due to the lack of a classroom, fellow students and on-campus activities and research. As a supervisor is often the only link with the university world, the connection between student and supervisor is of great importance. Because of this unique relationship, if tragedy strikes, it needs to be handled with delicate sensibility. In recent months, I was involved in such an incident, one that tested the dealings between supervisor and student.

- Tara Brabazon -

I am a supervisor of 13 doctoral candidates. This work gives me angst and frustration, but also pleasure and pride. As the waves of students pass through my office, they become part of an extended family. We share edited highlights of our lives, loves, agitations and disappointments. Most of my postgraduates are 20-something women, with some outstanding men and mature aged students stirred into the mix. We are accustomed to the rhythm, flow and energy of relationship breakdown, family fights, sexual disappointments and professional development. There is a power in their sharing, and I learn what I need to know from them. But, as the supervisory leader of the pack, I was not prepared for a tragedy that overwhelmed my research team in 2003.

One of my youngest postgraduates, Angela Jones, became pregnant on her 21st birthday, just before she enrolled in a PhD. Angela, the epitome of cool contemporary femininity, accepted this major life change in her stride. We made plans to ensure that, with the support of her partner Dave, her thesis would be written around and through the pregnancy and child rearing. The other postgraduates were thrilled. We all became invested in 'the bump' - as we termed Angela's growing baby. Eleven of my 13 students do not have children. Most of these women have no intention of becoming pregnant. At 34 I have publicly expressed my commitment and belief in remaining childless. But we were so happy for Angela. This pregnancy became a bond that tethered all the students together as we tried to protect and care for her and 'the bump' as best we could. We became less like a cultural studies research unit and more like a family. We accessed a bigger, brighter and bolder future, where the coldness and professionalism of this neo-liberal age were warmed by complicated, living, breathing students who hold passions, loves, desires and fears. Many who work at my University whispered that she would not finish her PhD. But in our minds, we knew such nay-saying was nonsense. With our support and that of her great family, Angela and the baby would be supervised to the completion of their respective projects.

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Throughout the pregnancy, Angela worked extremely well. Chapters were completed, interviews conducted and a fine thesis statement and argument emerged. As a supervisor, I relaxed: this non-traditional candidature was progressing better than I had hoped. She looked healthy, committed and focussed on the task. One of our Wednesday meetings - at seven and a half months pregnant - saw Ange complete the first draft of a six thousand word chapter. Our plans and systems were working. I exhaled.

- AJ -

I was five months into my first year of postgraduate study and seven months pregnant when baby Morgan died. I not only had to give birth, but also had to deal with death and attend my first funeral. The topic of my PhD involved perceptions of the female body. I had just completed the first chapter, pregnancy anecdotes and all. The first person I asked my mum to tell was my best friend. The second, my supervisor.

- TB -

Two days after receiving her fine chapter, I received a telephone message from Angela's mother. Her voice was jagged with emotion but, upon gruesomely replaying the message, it was clear that she said that Angela's baby had died in her womb on Thursday. In horror, I dialled the number with mechanical and shaking precision. We cried together. I am crying now, remembering that call. All the joy, hopes and energy of a brilliant young woman, who was going to concurrently give birth to a thesis and a baby, died before my eyes. My physical memory is of being kicked - hard - in the stomach. That feeling has never gone away. After that telephone call, I remember standing up, taking a breath and realising that I would have to tell all the other postgraduates. I was the grown up, the research leader. I straightened my back and went into work.

- AJ -

It was a very fragile time and how others treated me was paramount. I sent out a bulk email to everyone I knew to let them know what had happened and the date of the funeral. It was easier to explain events through writing. People forwarded the email on and it became the medium through which most people sent their condolences. It was also how I kept in contact with the outside world.

Date: Sun, 15 Jun 2003 14:38:14
From: Angela Jones

Dear Friends and family

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On Friday the 13th of June at 10.33pm a beautiful baby boy named Morgan Thomas-Jones was stillborn. Dave and I will let you know when the funeral and wake will be held. Thank you for all your cards, flowers, phone, emails and text messages at this sad time they mean so much to us.

Love always
Ange and Dave xx

- TB -

I could not use the telephone or see the students. I did not want my postgraduates to hear the despair in my voice or see the coloratura of my cheeks. I emailed them all - slowly and methodically - so that the words would wash over their screens. I needed the words. I needed the backlit lettering to make this stark horror real.

The final email was written to Angela. I knew that she would be giving birth the following day, and would probably not read the message for some time. But I wanted, demanded words to mark this moment in our relationship and to stress that her needs would always come first. The words poured out of my fingers as they hit the keyboard. Brutally. Angrily. But with confusion and care.

Date: Sat, 14 Jun 2003 14:47:08
From: Tara Brabazon
To: Angela Jones

My Darling Ange -

Your wonderful mother told us the terrible news on Friday, and gave us an update on Saturday. Let me just put some thoughts and feelings into words. It's all inadequate as hell - but let me get some words down.

I have no idea how you are feeling - no one can. I feel like a whole bit of my body has been cut off - like a special bit of my life has been lost. How you can handle the well-deep sorrow and pain - I have no idea.

All I can say is this. Whatever you need - whenever you need it - ask me. NO limits. NO restriction. I'll be there for you - whatever you need me to do. Never hesitate - just ask. We've been through so much - you and I. And I want us to go through a lot more - together.

Do not worry about anything at Murdoch. I'll handle all the stuff here. I understand that you won't want to see anyone for a while - I'd be exactly the same. When you decide that you want to see me - just drop me an email or phone. Come around to my place. We can have all our meetings at my house for as long as you like. You let me know what you want to do - and when you want to do it.

Ange - as you look at this screen - know that all the love I can summon is going straight to you. I always say to you - we are a team and we are together in this. I mean that phrase now more than ever.

I don't know if there is a god. I really don't. But if there is - then all I do know is that darling baby missed out on the best Mum in the world. But we'll all meet him - it will just take a bit longer.

All my love - now and always

T XXXXX

I could not help her understand why this tragedy had happened, and I felt like I was letting her down. I had always been the one with the right answers, the appropriate advice, and the Socratic questions to breadcrumb the path to truth. I had taught her from first year university through to her PhD. Now, I could not help her. Where she was going she had to go alone. But perhaps not.

- AJ -

My supervisor would send me emails asking me how I was doing and updating me on university going ons. Even if I did not reply, I was kept involved. I was then asked to send my work via email for her to read. In this way, I did not have to come onto campus.

- TB -

As the other postgraduates slowly cleared their emails and typed through their cold wet tears, other emails arrived. A funeral was organised. By email. Angela wrote to us. By email. It seemed that the writing was helping everyone. It made us more comfortable to think about what was happening. While we did not know what to say, we knew what to write. Through the words, we organised ourselves to support Angela, Dave and their families. We also wanted to pay our respects to our smallest colleague, our 'bump' that could have been.

That 'bump' became Morgan and our joy and happiness twisted into horror and blinked-back tears. Morgan would stay part of us, and we would remember and acknowledge the rage, anger, confusion and hopelessness that we felt and shared.

- AJ -

From the time of the funeral to my first meeting back I did not see or talk to my supervisor (voice to voice) for six weeks. This relationship via writing let me grieve in private without ever feeling that I had been excluded or was losing my PhD experience.

- TB -

Almost all of my honours and postgraduate students gathered for the funeral, our faces twisted with grief, jaws clenched with throbbing pain. Finally, after all the emails, we saw each other. Oddly, the earlier email 'conversations' did make the process easier. Because the words had been said, we could hug, hold and support eachother without question or concern about 'the right thing to say.' There is never a right thing, only the right words to use at an appropriate time.

As the tiny casket was lowered, I looked at my postgraduates. The toughest of them had crumbled. We were invested in this child, and that dividend was never going to be paid. Later, we would reveal our individual thoughts at that moment: some remembered the death of a younger brother, others their own miscarriage, and yet others would, with troubling despair, ponder their abortions. This is the life of academic women. This is the life of my students, and I, as their supervisor, had to validate and monitor their despair. Angela's journey and Morgan's life taught me these lessons.

- AJ -

I received Morgan's post mortem report six weeks after his death. There was nothing wrong with him or me. It was an event that just occurred without warning, without cause. When I finally returned to campus meetings and increased the rate of my writing, my supervisor advised me to use my experiences in excerpts throughout my PhD.

- TB -

Now, after the funeral, life is different. I teach and supervise differently. The group of postgraduates are even closer, as though we have been through a war together and survived. Through Angela's strength, we talk about Morgan freely, ask questions, give answers and believe that the future will be better. This tragedy has cut through and out the stuff and nonsense of life. Angela is an even better writer now and mentally she is much more knowing than her supervisor. She has seen the other side and tries to protect me from sharing it. Her writing is stronger because the writer is stronger. The thesis is sharper because this student's life has an edge. Her professional rigour is more pronounced because she has toppled into the well of personal despair, and crawled out.

- AJ -

In this situation, writing was used as a mechanism to contact and relay information between supervisor and student without crossing boundaries of public and private, work and life. It stabilised the relationship at the beginning of the crisis and consequently, the eventual continuation of my postgraduate studies. The encouragement of writing through the experience also allowed for continuity in the transition back to academic writing. Through this crisis, the supervisor's choice of writing worked not only as a communication tool, but also as a pedagogic device, enabling the student to continue writing, without returning prematurely to postgraduate studies.

- TB -

The best of writing environments are too often inked from the well of tragedy. Darkness provides the consummate quill for creativity, imagination and innovation. Teachers of writing, from first year to postgraduate level, must work with and through pain and test their own commitment to honesty and compassion. Without supervising the whole person, we are doomed to embrace the mediocre, banal and ordinary. But by riding the waves of sorrow, the revelatory may flood the page.

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Article edited by Nicole Howarth.
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About the Authors

Angela Jones is a postgrad researcher at the School of Media, Communication and Culture at Murdoch University.

Tara Brabazon is the Professor of of Education and Head of the School of Teacher Education at Charles Sturt University.

Other articles by these Authors

All articles by Angela Jones
All articles by Tara Brabazon
Related Links
School of Media, Communication and Culture
Tara Brabazon's home page
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