My current thinking is that I might move all the stories that might fit into the "Lies My Mother Never Told Me" project into a separate blog, re-working older stories with new research. In this way, I can kind of see what shape the project has, whether or not it can be a book, and how to assemble the book.
The elephant in the room, the one I've been avoiding for forty-five years, is how to tell my brother's story. I can't tell this story without telling his story, his whole story, which I've been avoiding. Part of my thinking is that, often, the best way to uncover an old wound is to rip the bandage off in one complete and swift movement. I'm also thinking that if I don't tell his story, no one will, and there are not that many people left who knew him before he got sick; if I don't tell the story, then all people will know is what he was like after he got sick.
Recently, I accidentally uncovered a whole bunch of research material on what happened to Jimmy while looking for something else. This might be the right time to do this.
The other elephant in the room, this is a room with two dead elephants, is that there were a lot of women in my life, who were in my life during a very troubled part of their lives, and I don't really have permission to tell their stories. Like my brother, with one of them, if I don't tell her story, nobody will because she can't, and I don't like leaving it where people know how painfully her story ended without knowing how beautiful it was in the beginning.
There are other women who, once I figured out the only reason they came to me was because they thought I could help them with a crisis in their life, I said some pretty ugly things to end it, but not ugly enough to undo whatever work I'd done on their behalf. I don't have permission to tell those stories, and I'm really not that sure how I should tell them because I'm worried I won't be fair about their perspective on what happened.
Friday, when I saw that photo of Ruma, it really felt like a ghost was reaching out to me. She knew my brother, and she knew all the women in my story, including the one who's no longer with us. Ghosts are sending me messages about ghosts and other ghosts; it's starting to sound like Shakespeare.
After lunch that day, I went home and started digging around for articles about another piece and uncovered all this stuff about my brother. Had a ghost led me there? I slept on it, then messaged my sister the next day to see if she wanted copies.
Lies My Mother Never Told Me isn't about revenge. It's not about exposing people who hurt me. It's about painful choices, sad endings, and missed opportunities. I probably need to write this book, even if nobody reads it. It's a story about my generation. We weren't the greatest generation, and we weren't the lost generation; I'm not really sure how to spell out what we were, but the world before us was different than the world after us, and I think that means something.
Writing all this down, I'm trying to Gird My Loins for the task ahead. If I do this, I'll spend a lot of time in small boats with some very outspoken ghosts, and there will be times when I look down to make sure there is no blood on my hands and no knives in my back.
My goal is to say something everyone should hear, not write down dramatic scenes between me and ghosts. If I start reviewing the project and think maybe that's where it's headed, then I'll dump the whole thing.
