More on Nicholas Hughes
March 31, 2009
Nicholas Hughes lived most of his life without his mother, Sylvia Plath, yet his obituaries overwhelmingly mention her. A longtime friend of the biologist tries to set the record straight in London Times Op-Ed piece. He writes,
“It’s ironic, isn’t it, that a man who spent his life trying not to be seen as the son of poetry’s most celebrated suicide should, by the manner of his death, ensure that for many who never met him this is exactly how he will be remembered.”
The positive memories he has of Nicholas remind me of the ways friends of Sylvia Plath have often described her, noting that neither showed signs of depression openly or until later in life.
And here’s more from the NY Times…
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Not showing signs of depression is in my opinion a clear sign that they both had very strong wills. Wills fuelled by the passion they had for their life’s work and by the love they had for those dear to them.
But the self-doubt and fear that depression brings with it can overcome even the strongest of defences especially during times of solitude. I was sad to hear of Nicholas Hughes’ death. Being remembered so fondly by his friends only shows that he was a good person with whom life was not too kind. May he rest in peace.
Not to be specific, my father was a prominent local public figure. Everywhere I went, everyone I met asked me if I was going to grow up and be just like him? A strange question, just like him? How could I be him when I was me? I had threats, attacks, public disgust towards me because my father did not do something just the way they wanted it or perceived it should be. It was hard to live down. Then one day I had to accept him for who he was and understand that I had to embrace my situation the best I could. That is the day I started to gain a keen insight on the workings of public perception. I could go into further detail but my point is that people need to take the time to remember that the world does not revolve around just their interpretation. There must be a given premise that one can not fully understand one persons thoughts and actions but they can try to respect and accept them as much as they would wish others would of their own actions and thoughts.
How can one cope with a mother taking her own life and not wonder am I to blame? What pain and inner turmoil Nicholas must have felt. The article by the friend is a true blessing to the strife Nicholas experienced. It unfortunately cannot fully explain all aspects of ones life but it can shed light into the darkness and illuminate the positive. If only all of us could have such friends. It is a shame that such a tragedy has to bring such issues to the fore front. I had read another article on Nicholas’s life and it was not nearly as positive or insightful. I am thankful you shared this one…..it is far more telling.
I have to agree with Bill on most of what he says here. I have learned from my own experiences that you cannot judge another peron’s life/actions just by what we perceive to be the case. Unless we have “walked a mile in their shoes” we cannot possibly know what they are actually going through that causes them to act or do what they are doing at that moment. We should pay more attention to the people around us. I feel it’s part of our purpose here on earth. We are not put here to be alone! If we were, well, would there only be one person? lol
Anyway, I can understand a child taking on the blame as when I was 12 or 13 my parents divorced. I was the youngest of 4 & 2 of them were already out of the house. Being the only one at home most of the time as my other brother was always gone until the wee hours of the morning, well I remember thinking it was my fault they were divorcing. Nothing anyone said could have taken that from my thoughts. It just happened. I felt that their marriage was falling apart because of me, afterall my father had always said I was a “mistake”. Hmmm. I don’t still feel that way, but then, I certainly did!
I can only relate to the suicide in that I have a cousin that took his life. After finding out ALL he was going through, not that I condone what he did, I can certainly understand some of his hopelessness!
I have been through my own hopeless feelings when my own son died at 12 years old. I wanted the world to stop & all that was going on around me to stop. I wanted him back. I wanted everything to go back to the way it was! This also relates to the “Raving” movie. Unfortunately, when we are going through those feelings, the world does NOT stop! Life goes on! Fortunately for me, I realized that I had to get on with life, even when I didn’t want to. I had 2 other children who were also grieving & depending solely on me as their single parent.
Anway, not sure if I should have written all this, but it sure helps me to get some of it down in writing.
I don’t think it is so much a “gene”, but rather you learn skills growing up from your environment on how to deal and cope.
Read: “Man’s Search For Meaning”, by Victor Frankl
This is not a book I would have picked up, but rather it came into my life as a required reading assignment in a Sociology class.
The message: “He who has a why to live can bear with almost any how”.
I think with even 9 billion people on this planet, 300 million in the US, there are still a lot of lonely souls.
It was a nice tribute, all but, “taking your own life isn’t rational”. I sort of disagree, if one believes in the natural world. I know this sounds weird in this brief sentence, but managing your life, seems to me to be the ultimate freedom. If one has a terminal illness or loss of quality of life, yes. But if one is crying out for help, then no. I hope they have someone that cares.
As the kid of someone who committed suicide, I was very thrown off by all the talk of Plath handing down some kind of suicide gene.
Stating that his death was due to it, however, takes away the responsibility he held to his friends and to his own life. He was not fated to take his own life, and it had very little to do his mother’s history. Ascribing his fate to her’s takes away the liability. His friends and sister deserve more than that.
At age 13, anorexic and depressed, I fell in love with “The Bell Jar.” Somehow, most inexplicably, this dark potboiler gave me hope, and so did Sylvia Plath’s poetry. But then I stumbled into a hard truth: She’s more remembered for the way her life ended than what she did with it.
This, I fear, is something that will happen with her son, Nicholas. A quick glance at his work history should tell us all what we need to know: he was a very passionate fisheries biologist and researcher. All that gets glossed over because of how he died. Should it? I don’t think so. As a human being, he deserves more than that.
I suppose only time will tell whether Nicholas Hughes can be remembered as someone other than Sylvia Plath’s dead son. Maybe one day people will start to focus on the importance of his work, not the reason it stopped.