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A posteriori, many of these widows recalled that something unusual had happened
shortly before the sinking of the rig, which suggests affective rationalization of the tragedy.
Disaster not only gave warning but allowed expression of the "dying'''s affection for his
own, thus making his/her dealh easier to accept:
Probably it's only foolish, but it seemed like Clyde had everything ready-the
garage all cleaned up, there wasn't a thing left to be done. II seems
funny thai he would do all of that that one time. Other people have said
similar things. that their husbands did similar things almost like they were
getting ready for something.
Well, I remember that we talked about things that we never ever talked
about. as if he were telling me something. We had just gOllen OUf car. lie
came home the sixth, and we had a new car. I think it was the eighth of
January we got it. And it seems like he got that for me. lie didn't even
get a chance to hardly drive it. I
Other testimonies evoke more fetch-like phenomena, but with communication between the
living and the dying effected through technological instead of sensory media. The mother
of a victim remembered that her son had phoned her "to say good-byc" before leaving for
the rig, which he had never done before; the wife of another was woken by a smoke
detector staning to beep "at exactly four o'clock that morning."2
Tragic song often demonstrates that to the sailor's wife and the lumbemlan's mOlher,
parting is mourning already, their worry for danger often confounding with forefeeling of
disaster:
The morning that Harry was going away his mother to him did say:
"Don't go away dear Harry, it's home you'd bener stay,
Don't leave your dear old father, your mOther for to mourn,
For something seems to tell me that you'll never more return.")
"I-low hard is my fortune, dear Willie, dear Willie,"
Three times she exclaimed, "Shall I ever see you more?"
Three times she exclaimed, "Shall I ever more behold you?
I'm afraid your tender body will lay rolling in the sea."4
The plot structure, in all these cases, is simple enough: parting--mourning, foreboding of
disaster--verification in fact. The women's constant "spiritual empathy" with their absent
'llouse. But 58.
2110use. But 56-7.
3Peacock, Songs 3: 763, Sl. 3; see also MUNFLA 78-236, p. 173. SI. 2.
4 Peacock, Songs 2: 486, s\. 2; see also MUNFLA 78·236/C3553A, p. 191, SI. 3 and Songs 3:
729. st. 4.