Inventing the Truth - Rose McCormick Brandon

Recently, I wrote about a hospital stay. I was ten. Left in s big city facility by my parents. I begged my mother not to leave. Of course, she had to and I was forced to find my way among strangers for the first time in my life. That’s if I don’t count beginning school, an event that was more catastrophic for me than for most children.

In the children’s ward, I made friends. Most were mobile, healthy for the most part. One boy was in an iron lung. This contraption appeared as harmless as a fallen garbage can but it wheezed like a dragon. And by ten, I knew a lot about polio, the disease that forced a boy my age inside the dragon.

I told my story as I remembered it, all the while, conscious that if I were to visit that children’s ward, and if it hadn’t been remodeled since my stay, that I likely wouldn’t recognize it. It’s vivid in my mind, its windows, walls, its cheery nursing staff, the pajama-clad children I scurried with after evening visiting hours. Yet, I know if I connected with one of the other children, whose names are all forgotten, they would say, “That’s not how I remember it.”

Our memories are uniquely ours. Much of what I write is personal experience. I can tell my story however I choose because it’s my story, my memory. The tough part of telling our stories is when our memories also belong to someone else, another family member, for instance. They may say, “The event didn’t happen like that at all.”

Five family members can attend the same event. Each one will leave with a different story. One has a conversation with a stranger that colors their entire experience. Another meets an old friend. One eavesdrops. One is aware of color, innuendo and drama. Another takes away facts only.

In writing our stories, we should be aware that someone else’s memory of the same event may differ. That doesn’t invalidate our take-away. It’s our story, after all. And we must write it, not to please another person, but to let the reader know how the memory shaped us.

William Zinsser says, “Memoir is how we validate ourselves.” Therefore, our experiences must always remain our story. We have to get over the idea that someone else will read them and disagree with our take on how events unfolded.

About telling our stories, Annie Dilliard writes, “The act of writing about an experience takes so much longer and is so much more intense than the experience itself that you’re left only with what you have written, just as the snapshots of your vacation become more real than your vacation.” We can write our personal stories freely if we refuse to care who reads them.

My hospital story ended up being about the first time I realized that good writing hums. In the tiny children’s ward library, I discovered The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Mark Twain’s words hummed in my chest – it was a marvelous discovery that lasted beyond my short hospital stay and remains with me today. I’m guessing that no one else in that hospital left with the same experience as I did.

Precious Childhood Faith - MANN

This morning when I was dusting, I took time to lift the small white bible with its trail of silk red roses glued on a white silk ribbon. I had carried this as a wedding bouquet more than fifty years ago. I wouldn’t have thought that some people might have been critical of me being pious or religious. It just seemed right and proper to do and something that reflected who I was as a young teenage woman.

At this time, all my friends were talking about the flower sprays they were going to carry on their wedding day: one wanted a Posey, another a Nosegay, while my cousin wanted a sheaf across her arm.

I remember a friend saying, “Oh, Donna, you won’t have anything to throw. You have to throw your bouquet, you know. That’s tradition. What will you do? You can’t throw a Bible into the crowd.” Granted, she had a point there, but I wasn’t really thinking about tradition.

Another friend said, “It’s September, Donna. You’re having all fall colours for the bridesmaid dresses and their bouquets are browns and golds. You can hardly have red roses mixed in with that. It just doesn’t match with anything.” Okay, I even gave them that much – it sounded right. But, the colours red and white seemed perfect for my purposes and understanding about God and marriage. I stayed with my choice.

As a young farm girl who had never known any other church but the little white one on the back concession of the farm, I would have had a Sunday School understanding of the significance of the Bible and the roses, yet, even in my early faith development, I was passionately aware that it was important. I have come to believe as I write my memoirs and read my mother’s school journals that early faith positions are sometimes more theologically steeped in God’s will and reason than some understandings we gain as adults.

In many ways, my faith was as strong and confident as it is today. I am amazed as I encourage people to think back to what they might see as a dormant time in their life, and they discover that God was busy tilling the ground of faith for further growth. Folks, for the most part, work away faithfully at developing their faith. And sometimes the seedtime is equally as important as the harvest.

The first question in the study guide of The Emmaus Series (2006) is, “What are some of the things that shaped your childhood faith?” As I apply that question to my life, the Bible and roses make a clear statement.

Donna Mann
http://www.donnamann.org/

http://meadows.homestead.com/

My Mother's Memoirs - Dawson

Recently, my daughter came across an old cook book that belonged to my mother. Some of you may know that my mother graduated into heaven a few years back. Our family felt the void of her home going and it was with pleasure that I received the phone call from my daughter saying that Mom had left a little note in the cook book. I'd like to share that note with you.

"Memories of youth
by Freeda Dawson

Each year drops a thin veil over the preceding year and as you get farther away from the years of youth the accumulation of veils becomes a thickness substantial enough to conceal and hide. Only in certain moments when some memory stirs will that thickness slit through with a look at youth and then the slit in the veil closes again. Veils, some bright, some sombre, fall together and lose all particular colour, merging into a gentle grey."

I have often wondered where I received my love of writing. And I have dearly missed the connection with my mother. In one fell swoop, my daughter gave me two gifts. I now know where my use of the pen springs from and that connection, through my writing, is re-established. We truly are an extension of our ancestors. My only regret is that my mother didn't write more of her musings. Many blessings as you pass on parts of yourselves to your children, your extended families or your readers.

Writing and Remembrance – Wright

Remembrance Day reminds me of the importance of writing down memories before they evaporate. My father flew in the First World War during a time when training lasted a few weeks and the lives of pilots were cheap. He flew surveillance flights over the German lines so troops on the ground would know where German defenses were strong or weak. He survived to marry and raise four boys. But I have no written account of his life. A few stories have survived. Of his stunt flight under the Rainbow Bridge in Niagara Falls. Of the family who billeted him in England. Little else. My older brother, with whom he probably talked about his experiences is beyond recalling them.

Two of my older brothers were in the Canadian forces in World War II. And yet nothing is written. Norman, my oldest brother, served as an aircraft mechanic here in Canada. I remember from my childhood his skill at creating models, especially the model of a Mosquito bomber.

Bruce, my second oldest brother, served with the Canadian army, as far as I know, in the Burma campaign. He was a radar operator during the early days of that innovation. Beyond gaining a vague sense of the horror of fighting against the Japanese in the jungles of Burma, I have little understanding of his suffering. That he did suffer, is sure. Just the other day I learned that he had been a guerilla fighter in the Burmese jungles tasked with plane spotting for the allies.

The emotional scars Bruce carried with him could only be surmised by his struggles to integrate into civilian society. Fortunately, he came to faith in Christ before he left us. But no written memories remain. What did he experience? How did he understand war and suffering? What stories would he tell about India and Burma? All I have to remember him by is a carved teak elephant and a fragment from a Japanese Zero.

Which brings me down to our day. What is it like in Iraq—in Afghanistan? Should we be there or not? Much ink is being spilled on either side of these issues. Here is where fiction is serving us well. No one should render a judgement about Afghanistan without reading, The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns, along with the dark book, The Swallows of Kabul. And the Reluctant Fundamentalist can do much to help us understand 9/11 from an Americanized Muslim perspective.

But I’m straying from my personal sorrow about lack of information about my own family. Fortunately, my wife Mary Helen, is compiling a memoir about our family life that she can pass on to our children and grandchildren. Memories are important. People live and disappear. For most, a tombstone is not enough. Hence the importance of writers.

Eric E. Wright www.countrywindow.ca