Dear Mom,
Eight years after you died, I’m finally sorting through the numerous boxes of your writing and photos in my basement. It’s time to free myself from the guilt I feel each time I walk past the room where your boxes are stored.
Those boxes have called to me over the years. “You better get us sorted,” they said, “or one day your kids will throw everything away without a second thought.”
Truer words are seldom spoken. Boomers feel guilty for not displaying our parents’ entire Royal Doulton collection, while our children are looking for an unattended dumpster. The younger generations are not nostalgic when it comes to family memorabilia. It is what it is.
Faced with this overwhelming task, I began by dividing the contents of your boxes into three piles: keep, toss, and foist off on someone else.
When it came to your photos – hundreds upon hundreds of photos – I tossed most of them into the wastebasket without hesitation or regret. You loved your trips to Europe and around America, but a photographic rehash of those trips 30 years down the road is not of much interest to those you left behind. Your children and grandchildren already have and cherish numerous photos of you.
I did save a few of the oldest photos, however, photos of ancient aunts and uncles who even you could not identify. The outfits are great: mink stoles for the women on a night out, men on a Lake Michigan beach wearing long pants with suspenders and long-sleeved shirts. I chuckled to think that one day a descendant might look at a photograph of me and grumble, “Who the hell is that?”
Your writing is much harder to sort than your photos. If life were fair, your writing would have made you rich and famous, a much-loved regular guest on The Oprah Show. Alas.
Some of your stories are funny. There’s the time you followed a red Cadillac down the highway, a red Cadillac exactly like the one you were so proud to own. Our family always drove more basic cars, Pontiacs and Fords, but somehow you ended up with a Cadillac in your 70s.
You waved, smiled and honked at the twin Cadillac. When no one in that car responded, you waved, smiled and honked again. Repeatedly. Initially the people in the other car ignored you but then began to look worried, as if you might be deranged. It wasn’t until you got home that you realized you were driving your other car, a grey Ford Taurus.
Your stories of the homefront during World War II range from the serious (your first-love high school boyfriend fighting his way through the Solomon Islands) to the humorous (a postcard from an unknown sailor letting you know he had won you in a poker game from a different high school boyfriend).
Your vulnerability, however, is what made your writing special and worth preserving. You never shied away from the occasional devastation life sent your way, writing openly and honestly about your first husband’s suicide – my father – or how utterly rejected you felt at the unsought end of your second marriage.
Your readers re-live the sad chapters of your life but also rejoice with you during joyous times. The Marine who fought his way through the Solomons became your husband when you were 74. The two of you prayed for five good years together and ended up with almost fifteen good years.
“You never know what might be around the corner.” That’s what you often said while looking back on your life.
And you certainly turned many corners. When life knocked you down, you found a way to get back on your feet. You rose again, and more importantly, you thrived again. That is your greatest legacy, the legacy I’m striving to preserve as I sort through the records of your life.
I’m closing in on the end of this project now, Mom. Life is for the living, and I’ve got other fish to fry. I’m quite certain you understand. After all, one never knows what might be around the next corner.
With all my Love and Wonderful Memories,
Joe
Catherine (Cassie) and me, 2013.
Some of my mother’s writing is available as a Kindle download: Amazon.com: AROUND THE NEXT CORNER: The Writing of Catherine McNabb eBook : McNabb, Catherine, Neely, Joseph: Kindle Store
My book, SLOW RIVERS, can be ordered through your local bookstore or online via bookshop.org. where you can specify a particular bookstore to benefit from your purchase (ISBN 979-8-218-43822-7). Yes, you can also find Slow Rivers on Amazon, and I am grateful to readers who buy it there. But think about it: does Jeff Bezos really need the money?
Subscribe to be notified of new posts. There is no cost and your information will never be sold or shared.
Please share this blog with a friend.
Joseph Neely, all rights reserved.
