Themes of grief
Michelle Elvy: Let’s begin with the way a book is an individual’s story and an invitation to others. Grief is individual and specific, and it’s also collective. Can you say more about this theme in the book?
Iona Winter: Looking back, I see that we grieve numerous losses, not only the biggies like the death of a child, but other things we’ve held dear. So, in this way I see that grief is a collective experience. As it is when we witness atrocities in the world, we often feel the grief of those things; and being impacted by another’s grief often comes from our own frames of reference.
In A Counter of Moons, I’ve written my experience openly so that people know they’re not alone, or going crazy, or being misunderstood when they are grieving, but that it’s the avoidance and silence around grief that leads us to think we are those things. My invitation is to welcome suicide bereaved people, and those who’re alongside them in some capacity, to share a little of what I’ve experienced and learned, and to hold the door wide open for some honest kōrero.
ME: Suicide bereavement presents dichotomies, as you note: madness and sanity, the living and the dead, light and dark, pain and laughter. And there is also something of an ‘inter-dimensionality’ in death, as Joy Harjo notes (referenced in your pages). You also talk of realms beyond the physical, even in your son’s life – his ‘third eye’ being too open, and your own sense of spiritual awareness, for example. Can you say more about moving beyond dichotomies in life and grief?
IW: So many dichotomies Michelle, and then there are all those unnamed spaces in between – perhaps that speaks to the inter-dimensionality you mention. When I trained as a psychotherapist back in the 90s, I questioned where was the model that included wairua/spirit – where was a holistic model for how I experienced life?
I’ve observed in our society that people who are having what I’d loosely call a spiritual experience are labelled delusional (that’s the polite version). I knew that neither Reuben nor I were delusional as children, when we saw and experienced things that were beyond this physical realm. Later, when I trained with tohunga, it confirmed for me that this multidimensional worldview is one where everything is interconnected. I often suggest people watch the movie Interstellar as it illustrates this well.
If we’re open, and can move away from any ingrained or dualistic ways of seeing the world, then we are more capable of being alongside someone who is grieving; with less judgement and more open-heartedness. We are infinitely more than a mind, a body or our emotions, regardless of whether you have a spiritual framework or not. I think, as a species, we’ve become far too smug about our place (and hierarchy) in the cosmos. As I say in the book, if aliens are a thing, they’ll be laughing at us.
Life, as I see it, is about learning to love and grieve well. These are intertwined, multifaceted and interdimensional.
ME: ‘Grief is a fucking prison’ – so says the Danish poet Naja Marie Aidt. Grief is also isolating and fracturing – we see this in your story. And yet, you also note that the space for grief is filed with aroha, and even sacred. Would you like to say more about these themes?
IW: Grief is aroha, both are part of life, and I believe grief is just as sacred as aroha is. And yet, for the suicide bereaved it can often feel like a prison, because very few people can or will engage with us in this place of such deep and prolonged suffering. I’ve lost count of the times people said to me, ‘I didn’t know what to say, so I avoided it’, or literally crossed the road. Reuben is sacred, as is my love for him – and therefore grieving his absence, his death, the abrupt ending of a potential future for him, and everyone who loved him, is sacred.
On process
ME: This book offers your specific story of living with the grief of losing a child to suicide. It took four years to complete, and another to see it through to publication. Do you think your goals for writing it in the first place shifted anywhere along the way? Do you feel you’ve done what you set out to do, or has it been a process that has found its natural flow, and even changed, over these many moons?
IW: The book was completed in two years, but it’s taken time to get published because of the content. I approached several university presses, and the manuscript was rejected. Roger Steele, bless his heart, said yes, and over 18 months with both of us sadly managing deep grief, we worked through innumerable and often excruciating edits on the manuscript.
My goals for writing morphed because In the shape of his hand lay a river (my 2024 poetry collection) had been written as a companion for A Counter of Moons – I had hoped they’d be published together. I’d also done a series of self portraiture the first year after Reuben’s death, as a way of showing what grief looked like, because I was tired of people saying, ‘You’re looking good’ and thought I’d write an epic book-long poem in response to that. Maybe one day I will. Sue Wootton encouraged me to write A Counter of Moons as an essay-style book, as it seemed a better way to reach people around the topic of suicide bereavement.
ME: In one passage, you write: ‘Why am I writing this? So that you can have a voyeuristic experience of the process? I’ll stop here. Some of this experience needs to remain with me. How much to say/not say?’ Is there anything to share about that process? Were there specific decisions along the way that became more clear, as you wrote your way into the story of telling about Reuben’s death, and your grief?
IW: It felt important to share my diary entries, and I realise this was an incredibly exposing thing to do. As a writer, it had zero distance – unlike poetry or short fiction. But I knew intuitively that I had to do it, for myself, for Ru, for my niece Heather and my nephew Brock, for my good friend and her daughter who took her life, for anyone who’s suicide bereaved, and potentially anyone who works with or knows someone who is.
A side note, as mentioned in the book: there’s been a degree of censorship due to our coronial processes in NZ, and I’ve also needed to be careful around what to say about certain topics and people who impacted on both Reuben and me. These things changed the specifics I wanted to write about, and it feels sad to have had to censor myself in a book about my beautiful tama.
Bottom line: I wanted A Counter of Moons to be as honest as I could be on the pages, and to make it accessible for others.
ME: Your own background with mental health, and your personal health concerns, are also part of the story. Can you share more about how you think your personal and professional paths play into this story?
IW: With my ex-therapist pōtae on, and having done a huge amount of therapy and personal growth along the way, this possibly gave me more permission (inside of myself) to grieve in ways that felt organic, natural and unfiltered. Actually, I have needed to filter myself at times, usually to make it more comfortable for other people – but, frankly I don’t care if I’m seen crying in an op-shop having come across the children’s shoes. It took me years of therapy to be able to cry, and now I cry openly, am less socially conscious of what’s deemed acceptable, and unafraid to speak of painful events.
Having my only child suicide has cut down numerous barriers, and allowed me to ‘give less fucks’ (a term many suicide bereaved mothers have shared with me) about what other people think of me, and has also prioritised what’s important. When your child makes the decision to die, you realise the only power you have is within yourself – we cannot prevent, control or change the outcomes of one another.
Contents and structure
ME: The structure of the book follows moon phases, accompanied by beautiful artworks by Kirstie McKinnon. How did the moon come to play such a central role in this book, and how did you place it as the central focus, for how to tell your story?
IW: Kirstie, bless her heart, was incredibly supportive after Ru died, and it seemed natural to ask her if she was interested in doing the artwork. And she said yes!
The moon and her cycles are something I’ve followed throughout life. I plant by the moon, used to surf and fish by the moon, and have felt her cycles throughout my tinana too. Reuben died on a new moon, which is poignant to me, and for the first couple of years new moons became a place of remembrance. Structuring the book around moons felt organic, in the way each chapter follows on from the one before it, bringing along the energy and aroha of another wave of grief. There’s nothing linear about grief, and it continues to cycle along with the moon.
ME: You have included poetry excerpts of your own, and from others. How do the inclusions of poetry add to the way you want to share your story?
IW: Poetry is one of the few things that has kept me grounded, since Ru died. I’ve found that poetry is accessible when spoken words are not, be that reading other poets or writing my own. It also felt important in the book to share work from other poets, ones whose work resonated with me and spoke about grief. Combining the diary entries, poetry, research and reflections was an organic thing, because when we’re grieving there are many expressions and reflections.
ME: Let’s go back to your journals, entries you include from the time of Reuben’s death and the years following. These are deeply personal, and written by the hand of someone in deep distress. How do you see them fitting with the story you wish to share?
IW: Including the diaries was very important, because I didn’t want to present a sanitised version of grief, to make it palatable for the general populous, nor did I want to present an ‘I survived this and am doing fabulously’ kind of story either. In the book I mention that reading these kinds of happy-ever-after stories is repellent, because grief is so messy and dark and filled with things our society doesn’t allow us to openly be or feel.
I suppose it’s also a protest against the silencing and avoidance I’ve experienced, and still experience in some quarters, and it challenges beliefs around what constitutes ‘doing grief well’. Distress is part of grieving the absence of a beloved child, friend, animal, tree; and if we can go there, our distress gives us a great deal of information.
ME: The book is filled with truths – regret, shame, longing, fear. Is there one thing that you might say was the hardest thing to write?
IW: The whole book has been the hardest thing I’ve ever had to write.
Iona and Reuben
ME: Reuben was a musician; you are a poet. And you write gently of the bond that connects, and the grief associated with music but also the everlasting creative bond between you and your son. Do you think music is perhaps one of those things outside our physical selves that can carry us forward – again, thinking of the inter-dimensionality?
IW: Absolutely, I think all forms of art are vehicles for carrying us at times of great hardship. Art opens us up to other realms, experiences, and perspectives, and also allows space to process grief on a personal and collective level. Art has always connected us to each other, and whilst I still have serious difficulty listening to music because Reuben was such a talented muso, it is also something that is permanent, just like an image or a poem or your favourite blanket your Nana lovingly crocheted for you as a kid. These things all hold numerous and precious memories, and as such memories become interdimensional.
ME: There is an entry from your journal dated 23 October 2021.
23 October 2021, Zealandia, Pōneke
I pause and hear a hīhī stitching loops together, then I take a seat; to wait out the kākā swooping channels in the air. A little robin comes along, head cocked, checking me out, hopping closer. We greet one another eye to eye, and then it takes off.
I glimpse you out of the corner of my eye, walking through the rākau, fleeting.
‘Can you hear the bees, Mā?
This seems to be a moment that tells us so much about you and Reuben. Do you think it’s an apt moment to linger over? Does it hold some of the most basic energy in the story?
IW: Yeah, nature is where I feel most connected to Reuben, because when I breathe into the spaciousness nature provides I become aware of things previously unnoticed or unheard. I brought Ru up with a deep connection to the natural world – whenever things were wonky we’d head off somewhere to either get our feet wet in a body of water, or take our shoes off and connect into the deep love present within Papatūānuku. “I am you, you are me, let us be in unity,” is something my tohunga Papa Hohepa often said, and again this links to the inter-dimensionality I believe is present in life (and death).
ME: In the end, we have a strong impression of Reuben – of the boy he was, the man he became, of his life as your son, with all its complexities. This line in particular sticks: ‘yeah, this is me, I question everything, and let’s have a kōrero about it.’ Is this the heart of the book perhaps? And is it equally about you, alongside your son?
IW: I’d say that’s a fair point, e hoa. Seeing the world from a slightly disconnected and observational perspective, as one does when grieving, has led me to notice how we’ve lost some of our ability to question things. I think as humans, we’ve become excellent at skim-reading the first few lines on social media ‘feeds’ (great metaphor there) and as such are more opinionated about what’s right and wrong, rather than asking questions, and opening our hearts to others who may not agree with us. I question a great deal, more so since Reuben’s death. This has much to do with how society and systems meld and shape us into following prescribed norms, or endeavouring to be the ‘best parent’ we can be, and how wired we are to worry about how another person may judge us. These days, if other people are judging me negatively, I figure a proponent of that judgement is a projection of themselves, and has nothing to do me.
An opening, not a closing
ME: Can you tell us more about some of the ideas and assumptions around Māoridom, and how those, too, are part of Reuben’s story?
IW: I think there’s a great deal of idealising that goes on in Aotearoa (and possibly overseas too) about Māoridom. Many of us have felt that sense of being the ‘token Māori’ at events, being asked to karakia or lead a process, and that ‘being Māori’ is a one-size-fits-all outfit. Hand on heart, I have rejected any definitions around my ancestry, because the places we were connected to rejected us when Ru died. We weren’t welcomed, and as such I’ve had to dig deep and reconnect with the natural world, as the place where everything coexists. I don’t believe grief is specific to one culture or another, nor do I believe that there’s a ‘better way’ to do grief that centres around one’s ethnicity.
Most importantly, I think we need to look at how we silence, bypass and gaslight grief, rather than idealising one culture over another. We weren’t allowed a tangihanga, we weren’t allowed time with Reuben, and we weren’t able to inter him, all because of the pandemic restrictions in New Zealand, and being in an urban environment dislocated from our marae.
In the book, I say that Ru often felt he wasn’t ‘brown enough’ to access Māori music funding, and yet he changed his ethnicity when presenting at ED in pain, because he noticed he was often left waiting because of his ethnicity. My path, since Ru suicided, has been to honour him as best I can, and to honour how I am grieving his absence. This goes beyond culture, or linear time, or labelling, because it accesses the highest vibration I know of, that being one of aroha.
ME: You mention Notes on Grief by Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, and specifically how she says, ‘Grief is a cruel kind of education.’ Tell us what this means, for you, and what this book might contribute to the concept, too.
IW: With grief, we quickly learn who we can rely on, or talk to, all those ridiculous socially prescribed and time-limited rules, how bloody painful it is to allow ourselves to grieve, and we learn how unimportant many other things are, when attending to grief. But if we choose not to go there, and I’ve seen this throughout my life with myself, friends, whānau, ex-clients, colleagues, ‘people’ generally, our grief becomes internalised and compounded.
In A Counter of Moons I challenge beliefs about grief, and say to the bereaved ‘there are no rules for this’ and ‘do it your way’. I challenge the ways we label and avoid those who’re grieving, and how this often becomes complicated because of how cruel the bereaved experience others and society being towards them.
ME: This book, you note, is about opening, not a closure. Could you say more about this?
IW: I didn’t want to write a book that rejected anyone for feeling the intensity of grief. Nor did I want to come across as preachy, but rather to raise important topics for conversation or contemplation, and to keep the kōrero open. Mā has said, since Ru took his life, that suicide silences people – that it’s a taboo that still exists within our society because of the judgements and labels (please can we stop using the word ‘committed’ before suicide!), and I’m quite feisty when it comes to not silencing people who need to express grief, be that privately or publicly. I know I’m not alone, in wanting to dialogue about suicide bereavement, and my door is open. Probably wide open now that I’ve written a book like this!
ME: Where does this book fit into the existing literature of grief?
IW: My hope is that this will add to the options available, from a personal perspective. There is a significant gap in literature here in Aotearoa that faces into grief, in ways that are personal, accessible and are not self-help or survival stories. When we face into deep grief, we honour our dead, our personal losses, and that we matter too. In sharing my initial experiences of being suicide bereaved, my hope is that at least one person might say, ‘Thank fuck someone else is talking about what I’m feeling.’
ME: Will you always be a counter of moons?
IW: Quite likely, I will.
A Counter of Moons: about the artwork
Kirstie McKinnon on painting the artwork for the cover of Iona Winter’s book:
Paint becomes:
honouring
release
companionship
being alongside
loss.
I paint to sit with. I paint to acknowledge. This is the infinite whirling through the finite. A thing that can’t be fixed, and which must be attended to.
Your life matters.
How can we transmit these words to each other, so that they are felt in every cell? To you now reading this.
You are the caterpillar endlessly chewing the leaf.
You are the bee in wordless dance.
You are the grass in the field gone to seed.
Your tears are the one and one and one of the ocean.
Part of all.
Loved.
The rest can be read at Kirstie’s Substack, A History of Kindness, here.
A Counter of Moons is published by Steele Roberts Aotearoa. You can find the book here.
Iona Winter is a poet, essayist, storyteller and editor. With four published collections of poetry and hybrid fiction, most recently In the shape of his hand lay a river (2024), she has also seen her work anthologised and shortlisted internationally.
In 2022, Iona was awarded the CLNZ/NZSA Writers’ Award for A Counter of Moons, due for publication with Steele Roberts Aotearoa in 2025. She is the founder of Elixir & Star Press, an indie press dedicated to the expression of grief in Aotearoa New Zealand.
Iona’s creative work also includes poems spray-painted on fences, collaborative exhibitions with musicians and mixed-media artists, and performances at numerous festivals locally and abroad. When she’s not writing you’ll probably find her in the garden. Iona lives on Aotearoa New Zealand’s southern West Coast. ionawinter.com
Kirstie McKinnon surfs, writes and paints in East Coast Otago.