DEAR TOM LARSON ? paralaxvu

I?ve been rereading?or should I say really reading for the first time?your book.? Stopped at the section on sudden memoir.? I mean, really stopped.? My older brother Jim died two weeks ago.? He was 85 years old, and it was his time.? He had never gone far away from his Ohio hometown.? He had lived a good life, loved his wife, raised a family, worked hard, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Jim was 18 and living in Akron when I was born in Ashtabula.? We didn?t meet until six months later.?? By the time I was old enough to remember things, he and my other brother, Pat, were living their own lives in other places.? When either of them came home to visit, my friends thought they were my uncles.

When Pat died, my sister and I flew to Ohio for the services.? This time, for Jim,? there is no money for a trip back home.? Instead of flowers?which just die in a few days anyway?we sent a donation to the hospice that cared for him in his last illness.

In your pages on sudden memoir, you speak of Texier?s The End of a Love Story.? You end with, ?Her memoir can?t satisfy us, since there?s so little emotional growth.? Which may be what all memoirs (even the sudden ones) need: variously growing and sufficiently moving emotional progress.?? I don?t know that I can supply that to my writing.? I feel as though I?m too old (67) and too used to living the life of a computer (no heart,? no feelings, just brains with lots and lots of tangled thoughts).? And besides, who would care?? Or is it just that I?m afraid of what I?ll find out about myself and my family relationships if I pursue this writing any further?? It?s so easy to tell myself I?m too lazy, it doesn?t matter, who cares (certainly not I)?? So why am I writing about it to you?

Ever since Jim died I?ve had this feeling inside, something I can?t quite identify, probably grief, I suppose.? A tightening in my jaw, a lava-like feeling warm and flowing behind my eyes and nose, that weird stomach sensation as though I had eaten too much too fast when in fact I haven?t eaten much of anything.

It?s funny, isn?t it, how a person can still be young in their brain?? How they don?t think of themselves or their family as older, only how they all used to be when they were kids?? When I was young, Jim was an older person to whom I showed respect (most of the time), not really a brother whom I could horse around with.? Even in later life when I called him just to talk, the conversations seemed a bit strained?how was he feeling, how was I feeling, how was the weather.? I couldn?t call at all to say goodbye while he was still aware enough to know me.

I know Jim loved me, and I loved him. But it?s been difficult getting to the place where I know how I loved him.?? I cry when I talk with my nieces and nephews about him.? I tell them I?m so sorry they?ve lost their dad, their one surviving parent.? I think some of those tears, though, are for me, for my having lost a brother I loved and respected so much and yet didn?t know nearly well enough.? Perhaps this little post will be the beginning of my looking deeper into our relationship; I don?t know.? I do know the lava still flows and the stomach still feels full.

So here I am, full of these thoughts, these ?sudden memoir? moments, and I don?t know what to do with them.? I will, however, keep reading your book and try to find the words I need to flesh out my relationship and write a loving and respectful memory of Jim.? Thanks for your book (the memoir and the memoirist) and course (On Writing Memoir).? They have both helped me begin a journey back in time.

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Explore posts in the same categories: Death and Dying, Family, Memoir, Small Town Life, Spirituality

This entry was posted on August 14, 2012 at 12:58 pm and is filed under Death and Dying, Family, Memoir, Small Town Life, Spirituality. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments.

Tags: Akron Ohio, Ashtabula Ohio, brother, crying, death, donation instead of flowers, funeral, Grief Loss and Bereavement, hospice, loving sister, Memoir, memoir writing course, no money to attend funeral, phone conversations, reading, relationships, sibling, sudden memoir, talking to the dying, The Memoir and the Memoirist, Thomas Larson, Writing

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