THE TAPESTRY OF A SINGLE LIFE
When my voice goes quiet for the last time, will my truths go quiet with it? I worried that my own unspoken stories might die with me, much like the ones my mother never finished. During my mom’s last twenty years she talked often of the memoir she was writing. I was puzzled as I couldn’t imagine what she could possibly write about that would interest anyone. She had a pretty standard 50s and 60s housewife life. Dad would go to work and she would keep house and raise the four kids. Her routine and dependability were legendary. She kept a perfect home. She traveled a bit with my Dad and her sister and often talked about things she wanted to do - go canoeing, travel to Rome - but somehow never managed to do them. So when she passed away and I found a file on her computer marked “Memoir” I opened it up and started reading, curious as to what exactly she could write about. As I poured over her writing and she offered her thoughts and feelings about her parents, her siblings, her early childhood I became engrossed in her words getting to know her on a different level. And then I came to page sixteen and her memoir came to an abrupt halt. That was all that she had written. I looked through her files but couldn’t find anymore. That was all. Sixteen pages.
My Mom’s sister, Mary K also attempted to write a memoir spurned on by my mother’s efforts. She wrote about the farm they grew up on, their routines, traditions, their survival through financial hardships with few resources. She had written much more than my Mom but her writing too came to an abrupt halt. When I asked her why she had quit writing she told me she had sent her first draft to her two brothers and they had written back correcting what they thought were her misguided memories. They had made notes in the margins where she “got it wrong” and had written their own version of the stories for her to add to hers. This so disheartened her that she stopped writing. Which was so unfortunate because I loved reading her words.
After reading these two memoirs I came to the realization that billions of personal histories vanish silently every single year. And now I wish my Dad, my Uncle John, my Grandparents, my Uncle Phil - I wish everyone in my extended family had written their memoir. They have all passed now and I have so many questions about their lives that will never get answered.
When I started writing my own memoir I was worried about what I would write about. My life isn't a grand historical textbook, but it is a story that deserves to be told and as I dug into my past and tried to make sense of how I became me the memories flooded back. Just as I would finish one story I would be reminded of another that I felt I had to share. Things I hadn’t thought about in years would bubble to the surface. We all carry a secret map of heartbreaks and victories that dies the moment we do unless we writie it down.
I next wondered if my four boys—now young men—would have any interest in flipping through my past. Many people believe their lives to be insignificant when viewed through their own eyes. However, when viewed through the eyes of another, what was once boring and insignificant becomes both interesting and inspirational. I didn’t suffer any great trauma and didn’t accomplish anything big or unusual but I was still drawn to writing about the experiences I had that made me a different person than I thought I was or in some cases than I wanted to be.
Many of the things my Mom wrote in her sixteen page memoir were parceled out to me over the years in bits and pieces. There were no great “ah ha” moments in the pages of her memoir but what drew me to read them over and over again was to hear her talk about her parents and her siblings on those pages long after I could actually hear her spoken words. I kept thinking there must be more. I wanted so badly for there to be more. She writes in the same way that she talks so it’s as if she is sitting there with me at the table telling me about her parents and her siblings. The rhythms and the patterns, the words she chooses all bring her back to me for just those twenty minutes it takes for me to read her sixteen page memoir. And so I hope that one day when I am long gone my sons will do the same. They will read my words and feel me talking to them again. The rhythms and patterns of my speech will come through and they will know that I am looking over their shoulder reading right along with them.
I recently went to a party where I had a chance to talk to some new found older friends. They told me a bit of their histories and as I listened to their stories I asked them if they had written any of this down because they were fascinating. I was seeing a whole side of them emerge as these 80 year old women laughed about their younger days and all that they had accomplished and lived in their lives. These stories should not be lost. One day a child, grandchild, a niece or nephew, maybe even a distant cousin will think to ask what were they like before I met them. How did they end up here, in this life, at this time? What and who influenced the course of their lives? Who were they before they were Mom or Grandma or Auntie?
These are questions that should be answered by the person most able to give accurate answers. Spoiler alert: That’s you. If you don’t write down the moments that broke you and built you, no one else will and yours will be one more of those billions of personal histories that disappear silently into the night.