The Fried egg theory of life   16 Jun 2010

Mary Fenwick

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A Sunday afternoon in June and it’s the anniversary of my first arrival in the UK.

At first I think it’s 20 years ago… it was 20 years ago today (sing along, you know I can’t carry a tune). Then I work out it’s 25, which doesn’t scan or compute. Not at all.

My brother and I arrived at Gatwick airport. My grandmother had sent a taxi to bring us to her house in Sussex.

Grand was very much the operative word with her. She’d been born in what we’d call “the back of beyond” – one of nine children born to the man who tended the water races for the gold-miners near Bannockburn, Central Otago.

But her second marriage, as a widow in her 50’s, had spliced her fortunes to a retired English colonel straight out of central casting. He had a war wound from the Somme, a personal history comprising Eton-Oxford-Coldstream Guards, and was proud to be the second oldest member of the MCC. He even wore spats.

As a consequence my grandmother became more English than the English and insisted that we called her Grandmama.

Her house (her husband had died not so long ago) had a long tree-lined drive, a quietly decaying tennis court, and rolling lawns with a backdrop of birds coo-coo-coo-COO-ing.

So that was one image of England. It was the same week as the worldwide and historical phenomenon that was Band-Aid. As I remember it, there was some talk about getting tickets, but instead we watched it on tv.

It was a snapshot of the future, where so often there’s some amazing cultural event within an hour’s reach, but you don’t bother – just because you can.

Where’s this all going? I have to write a profile of myself to circulate to the 250 financial professionals (members of The Million Dollar Round Table, ooo-er) I spoke to a while back. And I never know where to start.

Coming from New Zealand remains central to my identity, and it’s one of the first things that English people notice, but it no longer feels like the single most important part of my history.

I’ll try and explain this without pictures, but there’s a perspective informally known as “the fried egg theory of grief”.

If we imagine a circle, then when Will first died, my grief for him entirely filled it. The lack of him was my whole life, every single detail from breakfast, through the school run, through shopping for groceries, children’s bath-time and my own bedtime.

Some people think that over time, that significance shrinks and takes up less space in your life. But the fried egg theory says it stays exactly the same. It’s the yolk, let’s say, then around it you gradually build more life – and if you’re drawing it, that new life is the irregularly shaped egg white.

So, coming from New Zealand is still there, and in many ways it’s the source of nutrients, but I have built a whole, other, life around that.

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