Everyone reacts to grief in a different way. You can read it in stories, but to live it? That is another thing altogether. In “The Bottle, The Bloodline, The War,” the characters are struggling with bereavement. This is not merely a passing over; they are carrying memories with them, some of such weight as to drag them down.
Take David, for instance. He finds this strange bottle and it releases all these forgotten feelings. The past drips into the present, just as memories can flow back, unasked, implacable. It’s that scream that reverberates inside your bones and makes you remember what you lost when you would prefer to forget it all.
The resonances of what we have lost make us what we are, without our realizing it until we take the time to think. It is time when you are moved by the feeling of grief as the wave drags you away. The love, the laughter, everything that remains behind the painful emptiness comes into conflict with it. But remembering has some sort of strength, somehow. It’s messy, isn’t it? Clinging to happiness and experiencing that pain.
Fred McClendon uses characters in “The Bottle, The Bloodline, The War” to ponder on what is left: the love, the shadows, the longing. They understand that they can never forget the pain; it is part of being a human being. Every memory is a fiber in our fabric. Yes, it’s hard. Yes, it hurts. But it is also beautiful, in its own convoluted manner. The process of grief is a challenge, but it is needed. You learn to bring those memories into the future as you work out how to continue living.
