I can only suppose that every parent momentarily froze in horror when hearing of the 19-year-old girl who plummeted to her death in the early hours of New Year’s Day, from the bastions outside the party venue where she had been that night.

What words of consolation can there be for her family? There are none, and any such attempts by friends, family and complete strangers would be foolish in the extreme. I always wonder at those who make facile comments to the desperately grieving, and can only conclude that they lack the imagination to grasp the full scale of the loss that is being endured.

Why else would they say such silly things as “time heals”, “God wanted her for himself”, “the good die young”, or “she’s in a better place now”? These commonplace platitudes only serve to belittle the outrageous grief of those who are mourning, and those who trot them out are almost offensive in their ignorance.

It is much better to tell the truth to those who suffer what Jeanette’s parents are suffering now – that there can be no greater agony than theirs. This is a fact universally acknowledged through time and space; the agony of Christ’s mother as she watched him die plays almost as great a part in that terrible story as his own.

You should never say to those who lose a son or daughter, at whatever age, but particularly when that son or daughter is on the brink of full adulthood and replete with promise of what will be – that time heals. Time does not heal – that’s a lie. All time does is give the grieving the ability to live with grief, to build a life around the gaping and ever-present wound.

The rest of us think that they have got over it because they seem to be living their lives and after a while they no longer speak of their loss. But the only reason they no longer mention it is because they realise it is unseemly to keep going on about it all the time – but meanwhile, they remain keenly aware of the person who is missing from their lives, and of what might have been. Every Christmas, birthday, wedding, morning, afternoon and evening has to be lived through with a ghost in the room. The loss is much, much worse when it comes suddenly and through an accident that will lead to a lifetime of what-ifs.

“How can anyone get over something like that?” I heard somebody ask, when she heard of the girl’s terrible death through misadventure. The answer is short and simple: they don’t get over it. By some odd coincidence, on the day that Jeannette’s fall to her death was reported, in the same newspaper’s In Memoriam column there was recorded the anniversary of the death of a young man about her age, who fell to his death off the cliffs at Fomm Ir-Rih, while out on a hike with friends. That was a full 53 years ago, and his mother’s unfading sorrow remains palpable in that brief In Memoriam listing more than half a century later.

* * *

It was all gloom and doom before Christmas, with shops complaining of low sales “because of the state of the economy”. Then it was all gloom and doom again before New Year’s Eve, with Philip Fenech of the GRTU’s restaurants and bars section bemoaning the lack of bookings, and claiming that people are choosing to celebrate at home “because it’s cheaper” and “because they’re cutting costs.”

Maybe it’s time a few people sat up and noticed the shift in spending patterns and consumer preferences. Up to 10 years ago, clothes moved quickly off the shelves and rails before the Christmas and New Year celebrations. This was because people in general did not buy that many clothes, preferring to make do throughout the year and then buying something special for the party season. Clothes were expensive and the concept of “disposable clothing” and quick-changing fashions had not yet arrived in Malta.

The January sales started a month after Christmas Day, rather than the day after New Year’s Day – which was rather too long to wait for some winter clothing spoils – and sometimes even later than that. I remember sales of winter clothing starting as late as February, in the days (around 15 years ago) when competition was not that fierce and it was a seller’s market.

Then there were the discounts – a stingy 20 per cent off, if not 10 per cent or 15 per cent. Fifty per cent off from day one of the sales was completely unheard of, and 75 per cent off might as well have been a trip to the moon.

Now all that has changed. People are only going to buy before 31 December items of clothing that they absolutely want for the Christmas season, or which they cannot risk not finding in the January sales, when they know that in their favourite clothing shops prices are going to be slashed by 50 per cent on 2 January.

So what’s happening now is that people are no longer buying clothing for Christmas for themselves or to give as presents. This is understandable, because it is very annoying to see the Lm100 jacket you bought 10 days ago and haven’t yet worn marked down to Lm50 and in your size too. They are spending their money on other kinds of presents, or saving it for a splurge in the sales, when a relatively small amount of cash will allow them to go home with plenty of “booty”.

Sale-time is here and this theory has been proved correct again, after all the pre-Christmas complaining about people having no money to spend. People do have money to spend; they are just more careful how they spend it, that’s all. There are massive queues in the shops with 50 per cent discounts, which are being mobbed by eager shoppers in search of good value for their money.

It’s the same with those celebrations at home, about which the GRTU complained. People are not doing it because it’s cheaper, but because it’s often a better experience by far. Very often it’s not cheap at all. Providing an excellent meal for friends, with delicious wines, is a lot more expensive than going out, but the experience is far more enjoyable. Again, this represents a shift in consumer choices rather than a reduction of spending power.

Up to 10 years ago, going out to a restaurant was a treat reserved for special occasions and celebrations, like birthdays or anniversaries, or New Year’s Eve. Now people go out all the time, eat in restaurants on a whim, and more importantly, are learning about food and how to prepare it.

They are not waiting for New Year’s Eve to have a meal in a restaurant, but rather the opposite – New Year’s Eve has become

the one night in the year

when restaurants are to be

avoided.

Nor are they as easily impressed by the fare served as they were in the days of relative ghaks. People are dining increasingly well at home and are becoming significantly critical of what is served to them in restaurants. Instead of waiting for New Year’s Eve to make a buck, restaurants should concentrate on providing excellent food and service throughout the year.