four matriarchs: untangling the past
Thursday, February 18 
There is a photo of four generations of women on a wall in my parents’ home: My great-grandmother, my grandma holding me at 2 years old, and my 22-year-old mom. While not really a fabulous picture of any of us, it has always hit me in the gut for reasons I don’t fully understand.
When I started this blog, it was with the faith that if I committed to one year, two posts a week, and concentrated more on writing well and from the heart than anything else, I would be rewarded in some way. Something would come of it. As it turns out, it’s not money. I’m not going to make a ton of money at this and quit my job, lay around in my jammies and blog from home (rats!).
But last week I woke up one morning with clarity. This space has loosened my mind and fingers, given me back myself as a writer. I remembered that image of the four of us women in my mind and thought, That’s it! I’m going to write a memoir about us all. It seemed so completely right. Within our stories are all the heartbreaks of life that threaten to ruin and ultimately soften the boldest of us: pill addiction, alcoholism, disability, infidelity, divorce, dead babies, loneliness, mental illness, sexual abuse, cancer, you name it. All concealed in the lives of women who could’ve been your sweet and funny neighbor next door.
Since that morning I’ve shelved the whole notion, disappointed that I can’t hold on to the conviction. My grandmother and great-grandmother are long gone. How would my relatives feel if I aired our dirty laundry, if I spoke ill of the dead?
But don’t you see, I argue in my head. If I say that Great-grandma liked her Valium, I’m not calling her a bad person. I’m trying to find out why that refined, lithe woman with her spotless home and sparkling jewelry had unhappiness in her heart. Unhappiness that she unknowingly passed on to her daughter, who passed it on to her daughter…The only problem is, I don’t know the nature of Great-grandma’s hurts or why they needed to be soothed by pills. I wish I did, if only for the fact that perhaps I could’ve helped her in some way.
I adored my grandmother. Because of that, I’ve always had a hard time understanding her relationship with my mom. How could my mom not have felt loved? Grandma always said to me, “Meggie, nobody is perfect. But you’re about as close as they come.” I basked in her praise and would hear nothing of the grievances between my mother and her.
Especially not when I was a teen, when my mother and I had our own estrangement. Even now, when we speak of the past, of hard times we’ve had together, my mother relays what she remembers, I tell her the pain I have etched inside. Then, more times than not, we look at each other dumbfounded. Are you kidding me? we ask each other. It so totally didn’t happen that way. Were you there? Are we talking about the same event here?
If I were to write a memoir about us, about how four women in very different times and places have for better or worse orbited around each others’ lives, it would be mostly up to my mother and me to wade through the muck. Could we share those recollections with each other, talk about the things most would consider better left unsaid? Memory is certainly a rickety chair to put all your weight on. Could we offer each of our stories, yet keep walking towards each other, acknowledging that somewhere between us lies the truth?
I’m closer to my mother now than I’ve ever been. And I have empathy for anyone trying to raise a child as young as she did. There have been times throughout the years I’ve felt we’re more like sparring sisters than mother and daughter…times she’s worried about me, times I’ve worried about her, times when we didn’t like each other. I have a notion that she and I are stopping this inherited unhappiness though, looking back on it all with more and more of the compassion that time allows. A memoir could be a part of that continued healing. A part of understanding a story I still don’t fully grasp, whose happy ending I believe in and feel four generations striving for, all very part of the picture.
Reader Comments (10)
I never knew my greatgrandmothers and did not know my grandmothers as well as I would have liked. Now that my grandmothers are gone I feel like I am missing a part of me. I love them, I miss them and they are still a big part of me. To help understand myself I feel like I need to understand them better. I see both of them in me as do other people and that is comforting and it helps me to know why I sometimes am the way I am. Sometimes understanding your past helps you understand yourself and learn from it and not repeat it. All this to say YOU GO GIRL !!! WE LOVE YOU!!!!!
So maybe the memoir takes into account the differences between you and your mom's takes on reality. No one's wrong, no one's right, and our perceptions change over time. I've always been fascinated by this idea that we all need to agree THE WAY it was. As if.
How different things would be if we (especially me) took more time to ask others how it looked to them rather than insisting on our own version. I don't know about you, but I'm not always sure that what I experienced was normative.
Go for it!
Some words occur to me, "but you can love completely without complete understanding" I don't know, some guy writing a story about his family wrote that. As I recall it was a sad story full of beauty and forgiveness and dirty laundry. A story I thank him for writing.
I have to say something here about your mother. Ever since you wrote about your brother last week, I've been thinking about her a lot. Your mother and I became friends about 15 or so years ago when we worked together. I wittnessed the pain she felt on behalf of your brother, the ups and downs of his addiction, yet through it all she maintained her faith and good humor. Seeing how she and your dad deal with all of this together, it seemed to bring them closer together rather than tear them apart, as it would many others. I saw how again and again, they would create "second chances" for your brother, yet with well defined boundries. They acted how I think God treats us also: with patience, always giving us second chances, yet allowing us to taste the consequences of our actions. That is your Mother that I knew. Funny, patient, smart, and loving. She coached me through my first pregnancy and taught me how to be a mother myself. I was terrified, and your mother told me not to worry, "there's this fairy dust thing that happens . . ." and she was right. So putting in my two cents about your mother: I wasn't around (obviously) for your years, but I can tell you that she mothered me and helped me in so many ways. I continue to be incredibly greatful for your mother. Thank you for sharing her with me.
Thank you so much , Mary!! I have been blubbering a lot lately thinking of those 4 generations!
Isn't my daughter great!!? Love you both-- we need to reconnect.
I am from the deep, deep South where you don't talk about feelings and character flaws. I admire families who know about each other and are willing to discuss their shortcomings. It would be an intriguing story for sure. Please keep me posted if you write it. I don't think it's considered airing your dirty laundry if it's written with an air of humility and the undercurrent is loving. Go for it!
SDA: I see you as the historian in your family for all the reaching out you do with extended family...Very cool.
Cherilyn: I feel like I'm just beginning to wrap my head around what you wrote as I get older. It's a good thing, too.
FaveAuntie: Gulp!
Pooknelle: Let me know if you ever remember the title. Sounds like a great book!
Mary: What a sweet story. Thanks for sharing that with me. I can totally hear Mom saying that ("..there's this fairy dust thing").
Mom: I love you, too.
Kim: Thanks for all your continued support on my blog : )
Oh! I thought that quote would be recognized by all, but maybe you have not read it? It is Norman Maclean "A River Runs Through It" Painful for him delve into and to write no doubt but what a thing of beauty he gave to the world.
Love this post. Blogging has done much the same thing for me - kept me nimble as it were while I wait for the boys to get a bit bigger so I can take on some bigger projects. One of those projects is a novel based on my experience of living in Italy with my mother when I was nine. The idea is always somewhere lurking in my mind and heart although I'm yet to do more than outline one scene in a writing workshop last spring.
I guess what I'm trying to say is, don't assume that because you don't act on this idea immediately that it won't happen. It may not take the form that you originally imagined (for example, you may decide that a memoir is just too hard with two of the main parties being absent), but that doesn't make it any less meaningful.
I know I'd love to read anything you wrote.