Confronting the Complexity of Loss

perceptions of the witnessing experience’. 103 The findings of Funkeson et al in terms of
divergent effects of truth telling are reinforced by the views of the participants in the
present study.
The first question put to the participants in this regard was open-ended, and did not
specify any particular form of telling others. Participants were simply asked whether they
have spoken to others about their loss. The responses covered both private and public
forms of truth telling.
Several participants stated that they refrained from telling others—both in private and
public settings. One participant who had lost his brother during the JVP insurrection
stated that he did not make an effort to speak to others about his loss. He recalled,
however, that the matter came up in conversations at social gatherings such as weddings
and funerals, and such recollections often saddened him. Another participant who lost her
husband to an LTTE bomb attack stated emphatically that she did not speak about it. In
fact, the interview held with her for the purpose of this study was the first occasion on
which she had recollected her story in detail. Another participant who lost several
relatives during the final stages of the war also stated that she preferred not to talk about
her loss: ‘I usually don’t tell anybody anything’. This hesitance in telling others is most
poignantly captured in the following remarks by a participant who lost her husband in an
LTTE bombing:
I didn’t like to speak about it at all; neither did my children. We don’t like even
the mention of it by anybody at least by chance, for we feel very sad. My second
daughter later sent a letter to her aunt in Sweden saying that their father was the
best father in the world and the one whose love for his children was the greatest
in the world. When our daughters were going to school, my husband
accompanied them up to the bus stop. The neighbours once told him not to worry
because they [neighbours] would look after them; but he continued to accompany
them. He loved the children so much. So we don’t like to recollect the fact that he
is no more.
Two participants offered unique rationales for their preference not to tell others about
their loss. One participant, who lost her relatives during the final stages of the war, said:
‘everyone from the Vanni know people were lost and are missing, so there is no need to
tell them about this problem’. She also argued that telling others was counterproductive
because there was some resentment in the community that ‘only widows get all the
benefits’. Hence she argued that refraining from telling others about her loss was more
prudent. Another participant related a harrowing account of how an official attempted to
take advantage of her as a result of the information she had provided. She recalled:
Telling my story to some people has caused a nuisance. Once, a CID official held
an inquiry. He then called my number at 3.30am; there is no need for an official
to call me at that time. He spoke to me very vulgarly. He told me to come to
Vavuniya to meet him and ‘stay with him’. I became angry and scolded him. He
might have thought that I would go, as he said, ‘since you didn’t have your
103 Ibid.
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