I am currently working on the first of two stories that I wrote in 1996 and 2000. For years they have brought a two-week period of my life and my sister's lives to life. Mostly, these stories were shared with those who have gone through similar experiences. My biggest motivation was the share that telling stories and getting others to tell stories, is a critical factor in maintaining our history and of course, the memory of people whom we lost.
This can be thin ice for me. I am not always perceived correctly when relating to situations with experiences of my own. In my associative memory, it is my heartfelt attempt to relate. I fear that sometimes, in this superficial world in which we now live, this looks more like, "making it about me." Of course, I would never wish to do that, so considering all things for their potential perception, I step forward tactically. Respect.
Why am I writing about writing? There is so much that I have to say. I thought that maybe there would be a forward to the first story to explain what I am saying here, but really that would detract from those stories. There is something that I must say to the reader, every one of those readers who over the last 27 years expressed incredible kindness. Thank you.
The stories told in The Longest Day and The Day After were so difficult for me to tell that merely reading them takes me back to that time, agitates me, turns me inside out, and keeps me awake at night. Because of the raw emotion, I could not objectively see them with clarity.
I have always known that my initial writing of The Longest Day in the present tense was my futile attempt to keep my father alive as I was writing it. In the seven months that I extracted the words from my broken heart, I began to feel defeated and changed to writing in past tense, causing a colossal uneven pavement-like shift in the story, in which I asked for forgiveness in a quick forward. I explained that I was just not ready to fix it because it was too close still.
Having written so much more in 2023 than I have since 1984, I decided it was time to publish the stories that I have distributed individually for 27 years. I was well aware that they needed work. The past tense of The Longest Day needed to be fixed. Last names needed to be removed as I have not seen so many people in the stories in nearly 30 years, and some no longer live. Again, respect.
Setting out to transfer the text into the blog I was very surprised to find that grammatically, the story is a disaster. The work that needs to be done will be something similar to when they lift a house off its foundation, demolish the old stone basement, pour a new cellar, and then finally lower the house back upon its new foundation. I suddenly thought about the wonderful people who read these stories. My appreciation for them swelling to new levels. The praise that they shared for the stories was so genuine, I have to believe the love in the stories covered the grammatical atrocities. Either this or I somehow collect acquaintances with excellent acting abilities.
Moving forward with this project, I realize that all of the writing that I have done this year was the healing that I needed to finally be able to look objectively at my words that held enough pain to obscure my discernment till now. This is an unexpected gift. Then suddenly, in my mind the camera pans to a black and white Rod Serling, warning me to be careful in the trail ahead of me.
It is my concern that the very thing that put the reader in the dark with the phone ringing, in my seat on the planes, at my father's bedside could be lost if I get too grabby in my editing. I need to be ever so careful.
I can only hope that I will not lose the concise point of all of this. The writing done this year can carry me through and actually unfold the stories exactly where they have been ready to be unfolded for nearly three decades now.
I have always said that reading these always makes me feel like I just saw Dad in the last couple of weeks. I hope to never lose that, no matter the pain that comes with it. There is another factor that must also be maintained, the real reason I have shared this with so many people.
These two stories are a warning, a literary kick in the head to wake up. It was a wake-up call that I was too late arriving at. From the incredible words that readers said and wrote back to me, these stories soothed and spoke to newly grieving ones like nothing else could. For them, it was about them and they reflected on what they had, appreciating it and in turn, it acknowledged their loss. It brought honor to my father and others in their humanity and helped us all to focus on that. It reminded those who have not lost so much yet to love, appreciate, and savor the people they may not always have.
These stories brought to light that we can share stories, art, writing, music, and possessions to keep the people we love alive in a way that could not otherwise be so complete. The more we share, the more their story goes on. My awareness of this happened a long time ago. This will be the first time I ever put this into print.
When I was 14 in 1979, I was walking down Earl Street Bristol Connecticut after getting off the school bus. It was a beautiful spring day,, the kind of day where you start with a spring jacket and take it off because it is so perfect out in the afternoon. I passed a man on the sidewalk who was somewhere in his mid-eighties. Back in 1979, you talked with people you passed by. We stopped and began to talk.
He told me that when he was a little boy, he and his siblings and friends would go to the top of Route 69 at the top of Wolcott Mountain and slide miles down into Bristol Center on long wooden sleds. Wolcott Mountain's decline into Bristol Center would be terrifying! Yet, as he told me the story, I could see it. The dark of winter, the snow falling, the sun barely there and low in the sky. The children sped down that hill on the road in which only horses, wagons, sleds, and pedestrians would be. The laughter, home-knitted mittens, and hats, running noses and eyes. Screaming and gripping each other for dear life to the wool clothing that got passed from child to child over the years, sometimes mended by a very talented and resourceful mom. The crying and laughing, I could see their faces and I felt their excitement and fear completely living right there, right now.
What this man gave to me, I am not sure he really knew, but I like to think he did. I am sure he has passed, but here today, those children are still sliding down that mountain, screaming and laughing in my mind. In my mind, they will never stop sliding down that mountain. Here is the best part, Now, they are sliding down that mountain in your mind, forever remembered, reminding you of the power of storytelling.
Like the native tribes of old, I am stepping forward and telling my story so that many years from now, someone, somewhere will also tell it.
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