Engilbjört AuĂ°unsdĂłttir died at age forty-six, having spent five weeks in hospital due to an acute heart infection. "In the Marble Maze" is her husbandâs memoir on her illness, his experience of coping with grief â which included overcoming the myth of the âfive stagesâ â and his thoughts on life as they relate to loss and making sense (or not) of tragedy.
Ălafur Teitur GuĂ°nason has worked as a political advisor to a minister in the government of Iceland, in corporate communications, and as a journalist. He and Engilbjört were partners for almost twenty-four years.
Engilbjört AuĂ°unsdĂłttir died at age forty-six, having spent five weeks in hospital due to an acute heart infection. "In the Marble Maze" is her husbandâs memoir on her illness, his experience of coping with grief â which included overcoming the myth of the âfive stagesâ â and his thoughts on life as they relate to loss and making sense (or not) of tragedy.
Ălafur Teitur GuĂ°nason has worked as a political advisor to a minister in the government of Iceland, in corporate communications, and as a journalist. He and Engilbjört were partners for almost twenty-four years.
By the time her plane landed in Gothenburg, Sweden, her heart had stopped beating. Over the following weeks she fought for her life in intensive care, aided by medical professionals, high-tech equipment, and drugs that barely kept her alive. She was fully sedated for most of that time due to repeated surgeries. I sat by her bed, giving her gentle strokes in the faint hope she would sense my presence, spoke with the nurses and doctors and our visitors, studied the complicated and somewhat intimidating equipment all around us (trying to figure out the role of each device and what their signals meant), read books, or simply contemplated our situation. I also took care not to exhaust myself by confining myself to the intensive care unit while she lay there unconscious; I went on walks around the city to maintain my mental and physical health and to gather strength for the time when she would wake up and have greater need for my presence.
On our twenty-seventh day in intensive care, I was once again staring at the cardiograph on the screen beside her bed. The ECG was completely flat, just as it had been for the previous twenty-six days. There was something so utterly unreal and ominous about a flat line representing the condition of a living individual. We are conditioned by countless films and TV shows to associate a flat line with death. Staring at the line, a metaphor came to mind, and I was immediately struck by the urge to turn it into a poem: a very unusual urge for me and almost certainly influenced by my many hours of reading during those long days at the intensive care unit. I had immersed myself in the memoirs of the Icelandic poet SigurĂ°ur PĂĄlsson, and at this moment I had become so captivated by his books that I felt the need to imitate the great writer, similar to when a child watching a talent show or a sports game is suddenly compelled to start singing or go out and play basketball.
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Cardiograph:
A medical horizon,
with alternating peaks and valleys,
and then a calm sea
from which almost no one returns.
There is Engilbjört,
in a boat in the calm and quiet but deadly ocean,
far out in the much too quiet ocean.
Yet still within sight of land,
rowing.
Icelandic literary tradition stretches back a thousand years and more. Its sagas of love, loss, and endurance are a unique contribution to the worldâs literary heritage. They contain myths and legends, family histories and genealogies. Gudnasonâs memoir echoes these ancient forms, building his lost wife, Engilbjortâs modern legend. Icelandâs current writers and artists record present-day sagas of triumph and tragedy with lyrics and lines of poetry aimed straight at the heart. The author draws on these as he shares his love story.
In the Marble Maze stays grounded through painful moments, bringing us inside Intensive Care units, guest houses, and the empty home to which the author returns without his beloved Engilbjort. Descriptions of complicated treatments and emergency surgeries donât make for light reading, but Gudnason makes us members of Engilbjortâs circle. We are among those pulling for her as she fights for her life. The Facebook chat messages which could become myopic and exclusive are, instead, a warm way to touch our hearts in shared human grief.
Gudnason wants to remember. Counselling and books on living with grief are a comfort, but he is honest when the advice doesnât resonate. âI donât recall experiencing denial or anger, nor having attempted to bargain my way out of my loss,â he writes in response to the five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Yet, in optimistic Facebook posts, he denies that a stopped heart is the end of the line. Each risky surgery and private prayer for Engilbjortâs survival is a bargaining. The botched arrangements for the return of her remains provoke an anger Gudnason knows is out of character. As a grieving husband, he faces the sadness and acceptance of laying a loved one to rest.
In the Marble Maze is one of many memorials Gudnason creates for Engilbjort. As he sorts through relics, photos, and clothing, he takes time to remember. With songs and poetry from Iceland and around the world, he tells their story. He emphasizes family and community while giving it the gravity and timelessness of the greatest ancient sagas.