My mother was not a very nice woman. As she got older, she got meaner. Toward the end of her life, she was bed-bound (her choice), and my father did his best to take care of her. She was abusive to him.
She had been in the hospital for a few days, and was scheduled to be released the following day. That night, my dad called me in St. Louis, where I was living at the time.
He called to say goodbye.
I flew to Maine the next day.
I became my mother's guardian.
Next week, my father is leaving for Florida.
So, in answer to your query last week: I cannot think of anything more disdainful as leaving my mother with the last word - in anything - ever.
ReplyDeleteI'm smiling here--no way am I going to connect all these dots (not when the gap between them looks like the Grand Canyon.) That's your job! Try a rewrite, ok?
ReplyDeleteSee if this helps. I think the last sentence is what throws it off. Read it like this and tell me what you think it might mean.
ReplyDeleteMy mother was not a very nice woman. As she got older, she got meaner. Toward the end of her life, she was bed-bound (her choice), and my father did his best to take care of her. She was abusive to him.
She had been in the hospital for a few days, and was scheduled to be released the following day. That night, my dad called me in St. Louis, where I was living at the time.
He called to say goodbye.
I flew to Maine the next day.
I became my mother's guardian.
I think that when strong emotion is involved, an oblique approach is best--sometimes even an indeterminate close, which is why I gave her the last word in my edit of the childhood memoir. Here you come at the material directly, and it throws you and gives very little grip to the reader.
ReplyDeleteHere's what I think it might mean:
Your mother was not a very nice woman. As she got older, she got meaner. Toward the end of her life, she took to her bed, though she didn't need to, like some Victorian neurotic. She used the bed and her invalidism to control as many people around her as possible, most importantly your father. She screamed at him, told him terrible things, maybe even hit him. All marriages have their secrets.
Once she was in the hospital for a few days, and just before her release, your father called you at your home in St Louis. "Willow, I'm done, goodbye," he said. "She's yours now."
So, you flew to Maine where you took care of her until her death.
But the interesting part of this is the triangle of relationships, and that is mostly brushed aside. There is nothing solid here for the reader, whatever may be happening in your mind as you offer this skeleton.
I don't object to sketches and vignettes, but this doesn't work for a sketch--the reader can't see the outline, the meaning, by the end, whereas in a good vignette a reader is left with a lot of fruitful speculation based on hints and clues offered. Here, there are no such clues or hints, and there is absolutely no way that last sentence of yours can simply stand as an ending. Too few dots, too much space between them.
I don't think we're going to agree on this one, but it's the course of wisdom sometimes, especially with hot-button topics, for the teacher to defer to the student's opinion, to relinquish control, to let it pass--knowing that there's always another day, another essay.
ReplyDeleteI am laughing! While I appreciate your words, I must tell you what has actually happened. I had to start another blog for another class. It didn't. Go smoothly. Somehow the Dad post ended up on the new blog, and in my efforts to remove it, it somehow ended up reposting at the top of this blog. I have no idea why. I let this particular story go two weeks ago! (Still sort of laughing!)
ReplyDeletePossibly I can help you square away blogger if you're having problems. Blogger and I go back to 2003....
ReplyDelete