Ewen MacDonald: Tragedies are never kind.

If anyone needed reminding, that unlike soap box television or a novel, we see in the EM case what we all know, that tragedies are never kind. There is no order to them, no satisfying final scene or last few words on a page to touch the heart. Some of my friends held hope that everyone touched by the tragedy of Scott Guy's death would have room to move once the trial was finished, the opportunity to move on. Of course life is seldom, if ever, like that no matter how much goodwill we may wish upon the lives of others.

I've read elsewhere the reactions of some to Kylee Guy being involved in the setting up of a benefit fund for herself and 2 boys, along with the negative comment that has brought in some quarters even when actually it is no one's business except her own until the decision was to made to make it public. That was followed by announcement, more of the type usually attending sport stars, that Kylee had retained a media-publicity manager. Then more recently in the North and South magazine the revelation that Kylee wasn't going to let things go 'until Scotty was resting in peace.' I don't want to be offensive to anybody but I cannot comprehend language or ideas that suggest the dead rest peacefully or un-peacefully, in fact in anyway other than as dead, gone, in the beliefs of some to a better place. Yet still there can be nothing  tidy found in this case, or seemingly left in privacy.

I'm not sure how to feel about the revelations from Mr and Mrs MacDonald in the North and South article for they seem to have been the last to break the silence despite how very obvious it was to the country the destruction on their own lives, that of their son and their grandchildren. I remember again what Pat Booth wrote a couple of weeks ago about in his time allowing people the dignity of their own privacy. Mr and Mrs MacDonald, like others in the aftermath are entitled no less to have their say, construct the pain and delusion that can come from seeing a family change shape in such away that it may never reform into the bright happy thing it once was. They didn't need to make it clear how upset they were that Anna had  formed another relationship without telling their son Ewen, or indeed revealing it in any public way until they apparently found out and insisted Anna tell Ewen.

While many will be gripped with the twists and turns, others may show no on going interest beyond EM being a bastard and therefore 'guilty.' A lot will have a 'simple' interest in the law, and a satisfaction that it worked properly in this case despite the elements of anger, sympathy and emotion that lurked near the door. But there will be not to few nzers who will have hoped for something else, something potentially more satisfying for the heart, at least a semblance of things being put back together again as best they could. One person I know when reading the headline the Herald had swooped on in his 'scoop' borrowed' from North and South was to ask the question, 'what about the children.' No doubt, the 4 MacDonald youngsters she meant, which reminded me something of the anguish of all the grandparents.

Kerry MacDonald spoke about getting the news of Ewen's arrest and how the officer in charge didn't even have a card to offer the family for victim support. Understanding the cold face of policing that shows the uneasy nature and relationship between the participants of a police inquiry was obviously a shock to Kerry, to go along with a series of other shocks he's had which we may or may not ever know about. Yet it seems clearly that it was his wife, Marlene, who insisted Anna tell Ewen that she had effectively left the marriage and was in a relationship despite not telling the imprisoned man.

There seems no stopping the fallout now, not before time resolves some of the interest yet even then we can anticipate others speaking out, perhaps the children of their thoughts who what it meant to them at the time or later when they more properly were able to understand things. However, nothing will change the fact that tragedies are not made to order with some, happier, than could be expected ending, or that all the characters will perform or speak as required by the writer or scriptwriter. Yet it seems a natural characteristic to pick over that which is better settled rather than to extend privacy or comfort to the distraught.