The Road: To Milo

I struggled with the idea of writing something to read at Milo’s funeral. I had never been able to speak at a funeral, even my father’s. I always feared tears would overwhelm me and erase anything I might be trying to say. My husband’s urgings just served to make me more anxious. “I can’t write under pressure! I’m not a Hallmark writer. I work to an inner rhythm”.

I wanted to write something for her, for my step-daughter, my daughter, whom I came to love and admire after over 40 years. The step-daughter who was 5 years older than my first child and forced me to parent her before I was ready. When she hit puberty and needed guidance, I was still dealing with my son’s childhood issues, baseball, summer camp, and public school. Scrambling, I did buy her first bra, bought books explaining the ‘facts of life’ and tried to offer what help I could since she lived with her mother in Toronto and only spent alternate weekends and some holidays with us.

Over the five days in Edmonton I worked on a poem using random notes I had written on the plane. I didn’t know where I was going with it but I knew I wanted it to be a tribute to her strengths. By the night before the funeral, I wasn’t happy with the ending and felt unsure about reading it. Then I realized that was symbolic for all that had happened. I wasn’t happy with her life ending prematurely either. So I read it as is. Perhaps I will tweak it further. Perhaps not.

To Milo

Milo, named for an actress you never knew,
You trekked your bumpy way
Into our lives, our hearts.

Resilient, smiling, resolute,
You navigated two worlds,
Careful never to misstep
The line between country and city.

From school to school, then college.
On to parenthood before we knew it.
Dark years left behind
Out shadowed by baby light,
Travel, another child,
The petite daughter to complete your family,
Submerged in happy domesticity.

More years of turmoil:
You made choices to survive,
Protect your chicks,
Rise above sorrow, grief,
Your mother’s passing.

Seven years in South Dakota brightened life,
College beckoned.
Happiness broke through in snatches.
Back to Alberta, familiar ground
Where you lost and found love.

All the while a mother,
The finest of mothers.

We grieve now with your children,
Almost grown.
Raised and ready
To catch that cold north wind,
Change it into honeyed breezes.

With thoughts of you:
Whispering, directing,
Guiding, giggling,
Quizzing, questioning,
Always loving.

We grieve with the love that appeared,
The one who slipped in,
Grabbed you unawares,
Not knowing you had so little time.

We grieve as parents,
Our daughter lost,
Not meant to outlive our children.

Copyright © 2010, Ruth Zaryski Jackson

Barry Dempster Raises Questions

About 10 days ago I attended a workshop with Barry Dempster who is Writer-in-Residence at the Richmond Hill Library. At the end of a rich session on Telling the Truth, he gave us an assignment which I’ve been grappling with. Here it is:

Write a piece of memoir, prose or poetry, using all of the following pieces of detail:

1. A lover you had but didn’t marry

2. A moment when something happened but you didn’t get to experience it to the extent you wished you had

3. Something you’re afraid of, in retrospect. Did I really do that?

4. One thing that you’ve lost that you never got over

5. Your favourite movie of all time

6. Your favourite smell

7. The first time…..

At first I just brainstormed about each of the points, and then I began to see how the points connected for some of the people I’d identified in #1. Then I began to write about one person.

As I wrote, I realized I was writing about an unidentified Turning Point in my life and about someone who had left a significant imprint. I’d never forgotten this person, but until I began to write, I had not recognized their impact on my development.

The challenge of fitting all 7 points into one story was not easy but somehow they came together as I wrote. I’m not sure where this story will fit into my memoir but I can see that these 7 details were not selected randomly by this master of words and detail. Thank you, Barry!

Poetry as Memoir

A few months ago I received an invitation from Patricia Elford to submit a piece to an anthology called Grandmothers’ Necklace. As it was to be published as a fundraiser for the Grandmothers to Grandmothers Project of the Stephen Lewis’ Foundation, I was highly motivated to send something. My problem was: what to send? I could write about my experiences as a new grandmother but those feelings seemed too recent to write about. I had already written and published a short story in Wisdom of Old Souls about a woman who was like a grandmother to me. I never knew my paternal grandmother as she never emigrated from Ukraine and died when I was 6. My maternal grandmother or Baba had immigrated to Manitoba from Ukraine in 1911. We visited her once when I was about 18 months but I have no memory of her, and she died a few months later when I was two. How could I write about them?

I had interviewed my mother extensively trying to piece together my family history, so I had stories she had told me about her childhood and her parents. I decided to write a short poem based on a story she had told me about doing laundry on the farm under primitive conditions. The story tied into many feelings both she and her mother had about their lives. I called it Wash Day. After finishing one poem and feeling successful, I thought about my paternal grandmother and remembered an audiotape my sister had done with my father talking about his life. I listened to it again, especially the part where he talks about his mother then wrote a second poem about her called Knowing You. It too felt right so I sent both poems to Patricia, along with photos of my grandmothers and crossed my fingers.

On the 7th of July, almost 2 months later I was delighted to receive an email that both poems had been accepted.

What I learned from this experience was that memories, the basis of memoirs, can be expressed in many forms. Poetry is a great vehicle for short focused thoughts about a person, place or thing you remember from your past or, as in this case, a memory of someone based on stories you’ve heard. It’s all part of your past and all fuel for your memoir. Michael Ondaatje also knew this when he wrote his family memoir Running in the Family.