Learning From Memoir

Slice of Life Challenge, by the Two Writing Teachers blog:

March 9, 2011

Learning from the past - writing about things from my family's past - teaching memoir to students

The group I'm teaching is studying memoir now & today was the first lesson. I wanted them to take away several things about memoir in this first experience: I will write with them, they already have memories that will stay cemented in their brains for the rest of their life, memories/events are what make us who we are, and it's important to make sense of those events that seem of importance. As Willa Cather believes: "Most of the basic material a writer works with is acquired before the age of fifteen."

It was a good time with the group; they thought, questioned & shared much. It will be interesting to see where their memories lead us. Here is a draft of my memoir:

The small wooden man stood at my grandfather’s right hand while he wrote his business notes each day. I was allowed to pick him up and stare into his face only now and then. My father was killed in World War II, so my mother and I had lived with her parents since I was two. Her parents had become as much parents as she was. Grandfather, whom I called Pop, stood in as my father. Pop was kind, told me stories every night, read to me, took me on nature walks, taught me about stars on summer evenings.

I wanted that little carved man. I coveted him as a young child, and could not understand why, if Pop really loved me, that he wouldn’t give me the carving.

Later, as I grew up, I discovered that the carving was all that was left of my grandfather’s father’s things. I began to understand why he stayed at Pop’s desk. I began to see outside myself to perceive others’ relationships and others’ needs.

It was no longer this me, me, me stuff. I actually saw that Pop really wanted that little man; he perhaps regarded the carving as the talisman of his life.

I remembered that most of Pop’s family belongings had been left behind in Virginia. So little had escaped to be carried to Missouri when the family moved. I appreciated this sad circumstance, but I still wanted that little man. As I grew even older, I became fearful that one of my cousins or my brother would take the carving on a whim when I wasn’t there.

I am embarrassed now when I return to that time in my life. I don’t understand what I thought would happen to me if I acquired the carving, or if I did not.

I have the carving now, and received it on the day my grandfather died. My life did change, but not because of the little man. He sits in a corner of a shelf in my living room; I dust him when I can, and blow a kiss to my grandfather who taught me patience is a virtue, and persistence is rewarded.