'On 28 April 1996, Walter Mikac lost his wife, Nanette, and two daughters, six-year-old Alannah and three-year-old Madeline. They were shot dead, along with 32 other innocent people, during the Port Arthur massacre in Tasmania.
To Have and to Hold is Walter's tribute to Nanette and the girls, and their uniqueness. Walter recounts their early life together, their love for each other and the years of happiness they shared - all of which have sustained him through his grief.
He tackles with courage and honesty aspects of bereavement that are rarely acknowledged. After having the love and security of a family, he is now a single person confronting and unknowable future. He has also found himself thrust into the media spotlight, his grief exposed for the world to see.
Through the issue of gun control and the establishment of the Alannah and Madeline Foundation, Walter has channeled his energy into ensuring that their lives were not lost in vain - a commitment that was sparked by meeting the parents who lost children in Scotland's Dunblane massacre.
Walter Mikac is an ordinary person who, through no fault of his own, has been put in an extraordinary position. Coping with the unimaginable loss of his family has led Walter down a spiritual path of discovery - one of hope and belief that the circle of life continues. His grace and dignity in the face of tragedy have inspired a nation.' (Publisher's blurb)
'Losing one’s spouse is one of the most difficult experiences we can face in life. It typically contests our sense of self, requiring the bereaved to rebuild the self. Narrative is well suited to facilitate identity reconstruction following grief. This paper posits that further research is needed into the specific narrative processes that facilitate recovery from grief in autobiographical writing. It intends to contribute to this gap in knowledge by linking bereavement theory with narrative theory in a textual analysis of the grief memoir To have and to hold (1997) by Walter Mikac, co-written by Lindsay Simpson.
'Through the close reading of To have and to hold and my own autobiographical writing this paper analyses the specific ways in which identity reconstruction takes place in the text, in particular narrative structure and metaphor. In accord with contemporary grief theory as espoused by Robert Neimeyer it argues for the importance of meaning making in the reconstruction of the self following bereavement, especially in the case of premature and sudden loss. In its analysis of Mikac’s meaning making in the text, it employs Neimeyer’s theory of meaning construction which posits that meaning can be found either in the life of the survivor or in the loss itself. Lastly, I draw observations about my personal experience as a postgraduate student writing a grief memoir and discuss how the symbiosis of being both author and academic researching bereavement has contributed to my own identity reconstruction. ' (Publication abstract)
'Losing one’s spouse is one of the most difficult experiences we can face in life. It typically contests our sense of self, requiring the bereaved to rebuild the self. Narrative is well suited to facilitate identity reconstruction following grief. This paper posits that further research is needed into the specific narrative processes that facilitate recovery from grief in autobiographical writing. It intends to contribute to this gap in knowledge by linking bereavement theory with narrative theory in a textual analysis of the grief memoir To have and to hold (1997) by Walter Mikac, co-written by Lindsay Simpson.
'Through the close reading of To have and to hold and my own autobiographical writing this paper analyses the specific ways in which identity reconstruction takes place in the text, in particular narrative structure and metaphor. In accord with contemporary grief theory as espoused by Robert Neimeyer it argues for the importance of meaning making in the reconstruction of the self following bereavement, especially in the case of premature and sudden loss. In its analysis of Mikac’s meaning making in the text, it employs Neimeyer’s theory of meaning construction which posits that meaning can be found either in the life of the survivor or in the loss itself. Lastly, I draw observations about my personal experience as a postgraduate student writing a grief memoir and discuss how the symbiosis of being both author and academic researching bereavement has contributed to my own identity reconstruction. ' (Publication abstract)
