Thirty Days Read online

  The acts of kindness this past year have come from all quarters: the yoga teachers at Humming Puppy, who helped us start the day with an Om and Kaddish during the first week of mourning; the friends I made at Casa Ana in Spain on a writers’ retreat; and my fellow yogis at Silver Island in Greece, who gave me the confidence to stand on my head and see things differently.

  Kerryn entrusted a small circle of ‘angels’ to look after me; they have shown their love for Kerryn by watching over me, and I know will continue to do so.

  Kerryn’s siblings and my nieces and nephews have cried and shared stories with me, and brought bitter-sweet joy through the birth of a new generation of children, one of whom now carries Kerryn’s Hebrew name.

  I owe everything to my parents, who phone me several times a day to ask how I’m coping, when I know that the harder question is how they are coping without their beloved Kerryn.

  My children, Gabriel, Sarah and Rachel, and their partners, are my world. Kerryn knew that together we would give each other the strength to find life after she was gone. While nothing can compensate for her not being at our son’s wedding to Gabi in Byron Bay, we all felt Kerryn’s presence through her marriage veil, which was attached to the canopy above our heads.

  I feel so privileged to be published by the Text family, who are also reissuing the twentieth-anniversary edition of my book The Fifiteth Gate. I want to thank Penny Hueston for her remarkable editing talent, and all the other people who helped knock this book into shape: Nadine Davidoff, Emma-Jane Holmes, and especially Foong Ling Kong, who championed my manuscript. Thanks also to the readers of my first drafts, who encouraged me to continue: Alex Skovron, Krystyna Duszniak, Caron Genende, Timnah Baker, and to my friend and rabbi, Ralph Genende, who told me I needed to rise above my fears and find the words to eulogise Kerryn at her funeral.

  Finally, I want to give special thanks to my brother Johnny, who has always stood by me. He did his best to dance at the wedding with an aching back—a week later he was diagnosed with advanced cancer. He inspires us with his strength, which I know is rooted in his zest for life.

  Kerryn taught us all how to face the prospect of dying. Again, it may be a cliché, but I hope this memoir reminds us of what counts in life, and the value of three words we often forget to say—words I carry in my heart, but can no longer say to Kerryn: I love you.

  Mark Raphael Baker is the author of The Fiftieth Gate: A Journey Through Memory. He is also Director of the Australian Centre for Jewish Civilisation and Associate Professor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Monash University, Melbourne.

  THIRTY DAYS

  BY THE AUTHOR OF THE FIFTIETH GATE

  ‘During his first thirty days of mourning, Mark Baker wrote about his wife Kerryn Baker, who lived an “ordinary” life, as most of us do, but who was extraordinary in the courage, dignity and above all, the gentle, wise grace of her dying. Few of us will be able to die so well, but every reader of this book will be inspired to hope they do.

  ‘Baker recalls their life together and writes of Kerryn’s death and dying in many tones—lyrically, tenderly, with self-deprecating irony, embarrassed candour and more—but one hears in them all pain so raw and need so desperate that it sometimes threatened to unhinge him. This elegy of love and grief takes back to our hearts knowledge that is too often only in our heads—that the disappearance of a human personality will forever be mysterious to us because every human being is irreplaceable.’

  Raimond Gaita

  ‘Piercing, unsparing and sweet, this book will break your heart and put it back together again.’

  Miranda Richmond Mouillot

  ‘A courageous and intimate portrait of a marriage that will leave you devastated, enriched, irrevocably altered.’

  Emily Bitto

  textpublishing.com.au

  The Text Publishing Company

  Swann House

  22 William Street

  Melbourne Victoria 3000

  Australia

  Copyright © Mark Raphael Baker 2017

  The moral rights of the author have been asserted.

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright above, no part of this publication shall be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the publisher of this book.

  Cover design by W.H. Chong

  Back cover photo of Kerryn Baker courtesy of the author

  Page design by Jess Horrocks

  Typeset by J&M Typesetting

  National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry:

  Author: Baker, Mark Raphael, 1959–

  Title: Thirty Days: A Journey to the End of Love/by Mark Raphael Baker

  ISBN: 9781925498677 (hardback)

  ISBN: 9781925498653 (paperback)

  ISBN: 9781925410877 (ebook)

  Subjects: Baker family. Authors, Australian—Biography. Death—Psychological aspects. Terminally ill—Australia—Biography. Marriage—Grief—Death.