A friend of mine recommended I read Gilead. Even though it’s a work of fiction, my friend said it inspired her to pass on to her children and grandchildren a similar (but real, nonfiction) reflection on her life. After finishing the book, I agreed and found myself wanting to capture some sense of Life As I Know It. I’d like to pass on to my family some of my thoughts, beliefs, and reflections.

In college, my creative writing peers responded with curiosity and enthusiasm to my poems about farm life. I thought it might be interesting to once again turn to Memory to take me back there. So many of us grew up in suburbs. Heavens, that’s where my own children have grown up! Thus, it’s becoming a rare thing to meet someone who grew up on a farm. One day, the rural lifestyle will become so rare that it may be lost altogether.

Reflections

I think about this as I drive along the back roads beyond our subdivision, watching developers carve up farm fields with earth movers, slicing open spaces into parcels on which oversized American houses will be situated. Corn will be replaced with sod; soybeans, with swing sets.

No one will remember the faded, dilapidated barn I admired for the past 12 years. Barns like those are demolished, every trace of them turned over into the earth, or perhaps a few of their weathered boards are rescued by a crafter or antiquer who will use them to construct a cupboard to display Depression glass pitchers or vintage teapots. Then a community clubhouse is erected in their place. Maybe a golf course. Or a tennis court.

There may come a time when memories and perhaps a few photographs taken by those who recognize the inevitable will be all that remains of rural life. We ought to capture those memories. Not only my memories, though I’m tempted to try to set down an account of my upbringing on a few flat acres that fed a small herd of black Angus cattle and produced corn, hay and soybeans. But my version would be quite different from others’. I’d like, for example, to see what my brother would write.

Blogging seems so taken up with Now Thoughts. Analysis of what is happening at this very moment—politics, news reports, controversies—fill the Internet white space. The immediate snags web readers. Reflections and stories draw in a few.

Don’t we need both?

We need to stay abreast of what’s happening in the world around us, definitely. But we need stories, too, and reflections on what’s passed. Looking back can surely help us look ahead.

The Custodians of Memory

William Zinsser, in “How to Write a Memoir,” an article in The American Scholar, says, “Writers are the custodians of memory, and that’s what you must become if you want to leave some kind of record of your life and of the family you were born into…Too often memories die with their owner, and too often time surprises us by running out.”

I hope my mom and dad will take time to reminisce about their lives in Small Town America. They were children in the 1930s and ’40s. They tell great stories, and I’m afraid I won’t remember them all, certainly not the details that bring them to life. That would be a marvelous Gilead-gift for us, and I’ll bet they would gain from it, as well.

People have generalized about their era, when chewing gum in class was a scandalous act of defiance at school and mothers all watched out for each other’s kids on summer days. We know that. We’ve read the sweeping generalities. It’ll be the details that take us back. We need people to tell us the way life smelled and how things tasted.

When Elizabeth Bolden, previously believed to be the world’s oldest known living person, died in 2006, I thought about all the stories that went with her to the grave. Did anybody write them down? As the story I linked you to reported, she was born in 1890, “the year that Idaho became a state and Sitting Bull was killed. She was an adult with a child when Mark Twain passed away. She was 28 years old when World War I ended.”

Not long after hearing about her passing, I read an article about the Monuments Men, soldiers whose assignment was to recover and preserve the artwork looted by the Nazis during WWII. Robert Edsel’s book (later made into a movie) about this team of men and their unusual and undervalued role in history (and art) provided the opportunity for Edsel to travel the country to exhibit photographs and material featured in his book. On this tour, he intended to seek out the few living members of the squad in order to interview them.

“The problem is, we’re in a race with time now,” he was quoted as saying. One officer with a department that helped the Monuments Men just passed away at the age of 98. Stories are passing away, as well.

It’s hard while we’re living to imagine that our lives will one day be part of history. It’s hard to think that the gadgets we think are so cool will be passé in less than a generation. We can’t fathom that our breakfast cereal, hairstyles and automobiles will change so dramatically that we may laugh at them when we’re 98, or that they won’t even exist one day.

Preserving the Past

Occasionally people speculate about what archaeologists of the future will assume when they dig up our “stuff.” What will they conclude about our habits, values and what we felt was worth investing in?

Wouldn’t it be nice to leave them some stories to peruse?

What are your memories?

Think back. Reflect. Remember.

Write them down. 

How?

Zinsser offers this simple approach:

Go to your desk on Monday morning and write about some event that’s still vivid in your memory. What you write doesn’t have to be long—three pages, five pages—but it should have a beginning and an end. Put that episode in a folder and get on with your life. On Tuesday morning, do the same thing. Tuesday’s episode doesn’t have to be related to Monday’s episode. Take whatever memory comes calling; your subconscious mind, having been put to work, will start delivering your past.

Now is the time to tell your story.

Modified slightly from the archives

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Is every hour rush hour at your house?

Explore the jarring effects of our overcommitted culture and find refreshing alternatives for a more meaningful family and spiritual life.

Find a pace that frees your family to flourish.

“Not So Fast is a gift to every reader who takes the time to slow down and breathe in its pages.”

—Lee Strobel, best-selling author of The Case for Christ

The post Now Is the Time to Tell Your Story appeared first on Ann Kroeker, Writing Coach.

The taper candles burned low, dripping tiny wax circles onto our gold tablecloth. The turkey carcass sat in the pan picked clean, the few remaining rolls were bagged up for the next day’s lunch, and crumbly remnants of pumpkin pie waited to be cleared.

During the lull, the kids sprawled on the living room floor playing a card game; our neighbors chatted with my mom and husband; Dad was leaning back in his dining room chair, listening to my niece describe her college classes; and I was thinking about asking my husband to make another pot of decaf.

The doorbell rang.

My husband and I looked at each other.

“Is it Jonathan?” I asked.

A friend of my in-laws introduced Jonathan to us when she heard he would be moving from Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to the United States to study at a university near our home. After exchanging several emails, we arranged to meet him at the airport and invited him to stay with us until he settled into his room on campus. On weekends, he’d sometimes join us for family outings and church.

We invited him for Thanksgiving, but he’d already made plans with friends from school. He agreed to drop in later if possible, however, so when the doorbell rang, my husband and I excused ourselves from the table to fling open the front door.

“Jonathan!”

“It’s so good to see you!” Jonathan exclaimed, giving us a big hug. “Let me introduce you to my friends!”

Everyone poured in, and we worked to keep names connected with nations. Jonathan and his friends—all international law students—hailed from five different African countries: DRC, Nigeria, Swaziland, Tanzania, and Kenya.

We invited them to take off their coats, sit down and have some all-American pie with us, but they declined, insisting they could only stay a minute.

Before long, however, I heard my kids laughing with delight as the young man from Swaziland pounded out a lively jazz tune on our console piano. Everyone else stood around the kitchen hearing about the students’ homelands, hopes and ambitions: Jonathan leaned against the doorway chatting in French with our niece; my dad and our neighbor stood by the fridge interacting with the tall, lean, soft-spoken man from Nigeria; over by the stove, my mom spoke with the young women from Tanzania.

I turned to the Kenyan and asked about her studies. She said her focus was international human rights. Curious, I asked more questions.

A Maasai by birth, she said her father sent her to another part of the country so she could be spared some of their customs. She stayed there until she graduated from school, and now she was in the U.S. beginning post-graduate work. When she returns to Kenya, she plans to speak on national radio stations and at government meetings, to anyone and everyone, in hopes of convincing people to protect the rights of girls and women.

“You’re going to change the world,” I blurted out. She grinned a little and said she was going to do what she could.

Suddenly the others broke from their conversational clusters and announced they were leaving. She stopped her story to join them.

I wanted to call out, “Wait! Don’t go yet—I want to learn more!” but they were excusing themselves and working their way toward the door. Next thing you know, we waved goodbye and they were gone. I glanced at my watch. They’d lingered forty-five minutes…just long enough to rouse us from our post-feast stupor. We stood around for a moment, searching for a transition from Africa to America.

While wandering back to the table, we swapped tidbits from our respective discussions. Someone admitted to being unsure where Tanzania and Swaziland were located, so everyone chipped in ideas. Eventually I sent my son to fetch an atlas. We leaned in to locate all the countries, comparing size and proximity to the equator.

After we satisfied our geographical curiosity, I closed the atlas and set it aside. The kids returned to their card game, and my husband stepped into the kitchen to grind beans for more coffee. I looked around for what to do next and reached for the dessert plates that needed to be cleared, still thinking of the Maasai girl, imagining her voice over the airwaves, unwavering.

Related Reading

• A Foreigner Sees the World
• Your Writing Can Change the World – a Where I’m From exercise

* * *

Wherever you are in the world, I’m so thankful you stopped by. Because it’s the Thanksgiving holiday in the United States, I’m suspending my usual schedule to enjoy family and friends for the next few days. Thanks for understanding. I’ll be back on Monday.

This modified reprint by Ann Kroeker originally appeared at The High Calling and is reprinted here under a Creative Commons license. 

The post When Africa Stopped By – A Thanksgiving Story appeared first on Ann Kroeker, Writing Coach.

We took him straight to the hospital, where they admitted him for tests. While there, he ran into some complications, but they stabilized him and helped me arrange for Dad to stay in a rehab facility. Weeks later, rehab prepared him to return home where he would attempt to take care of himself.

He tried, but it was too much. Even with frequent visits from home health care nurses and therapists, he panicked one night and phoned 911. The ER doctor called me at 2:00 a.m. and said nothing was physically wrong with Dad; the doctor said Dad kept repeating one line: “I can’t take care of myself!” My brother was out of town, so my husband and I drove to the emergency room an hour away and arranged a return to rehab while we tried to form a plan.

We thought assisted living might work, so I toured a nearby facility. The director took me on a tour, dropping her voice to a whisper as we tiptoed past the bingo players in the dining hall. She pointed to the drink station. “Available 24/7,” she whispered.

Dad would like that, I thought. I could imagine him coming down for an afternoon cup of coffee and staying to chat with another resident. I snapped photos of the coffee station, sent them to my brother along with pictures of the library, lounge and room. He agreed it all looked good. We decided to add Dad’s name to the wait list.

But within days, Dad continued his descent—not another tumble to the ground, but a fall nonetheless. He keeps falling deeper and deeper into an emotional and mental abyss—a prison of his own fears. He imagines anatomical impossibilities to explain his symptoms and clings to bizarre self-diagnoses. Reason can no longer reach him, though maybe it never did.

Assisted living is no longer an option. In November, one facility transferred him to another designed to handle complications like his. From there, he landed back in a hospital. Finally, we’ve got him situated in a place where trained medical staff can answer his call day or night and tend to his needs, whether actual or perceived.

I accompany him to doctor visits, explaining symptoms he can’t remember and taking notes on the doctor’s diagnosis and treatment plan to refer to later. He often mishears, misquotes, misconstrues, or misunderstands what they say, and even my careful notes cannot convince him otherwise.

He phones and begs me to bring him something, so I show up with his request. Soap and shampoo. A belt. Q-tips. Note pads and pens. Batteries for a hearing aid he doesn’t wear. One time I showed up with floss and spent an hour assuring him they weren’t throwing away his clothes. I helped organize the five rolls of plastic trash bags he’d demanded from one of the aides. At his orders, I straightened his newspapers and magazines into tidy stacks, fetched the TV remotes, and adjusted the front legs of his walker a notch or two.

No matter how long I’m there, I can’t show up often enough or stay long enough to suit him. The nurses and aides can’t come quick enough when he punches the call light. He wants someone constantly by his side.

I try to talk him to a quieter, calmer space, inviting stories of his grandfather, aunts and uncles. He occasionally drifts into memories, and I listen; usually, though, he fixates on something that worries him—most often it’s his catheter, but it could be a bit of flaky skin, a tiny spot on his arm, the ideal position of his hospital-style bed. When he’s in that mode, nothing can distract or relax him. Eventually I have to leave to pick up my son from school or meet a client or eat. When I begin to excuse myself after spending an afternoon with him, he says I’m too damn busy.

Today he phoned. He phones often. Today he wants more socks, special ones for his varicose veins. He demanded them, he begged for them, he made sounds like he was crying. I said I’d try to bring them over in the afternoon. He abruptly stopped the unnatural crying and said he’d be dead before I got there. Then he hung up.

I’ll sort through the tub full of clothes we brought back from his house. I’ll dig through and find what he wants. I’ll leave behind the bills, the baskets of laundry, the editing projects, the cluttered bathroom counters and the splattered kitchen floor, and this afternoon, I’ll take Dad his socks.

* * * * *

Note to readers: Thank you for your patience. I know that some of you have wondered why I’ve fallen silent for such long stretches in this online space. This is why.

The post A Prison of His Own Fears appeared first on Ann Kroeker, Writing Coach.

I was ten, maybe, visiting my friend Becky, who lived on a farm down the street where they raised cows, pigs, and ducks. She and I spotted a lone duck egg that had fallen from its nest into the pond. I held onto a tree trunk and leaned out to coax the egg toward us using a long stick, finally pulling it close enough to pluck it from the water.

Becky’s mom said I could have it, and when I asked my own mother if I could try to hatch it, she said sure. So I formed a nest from one of my T-shirts, tucked the egg into an old sock and lay it gently on the wad of fabric. Then I positioned a desk lamp nearby, moving it this way and that until the bulb was close enough to provide warmth, but far enough to avoid igniting the shirt.

When I left for school, I made my mother promise to watch it; I was afraid the duckling would hatch while I was gone and suffocate in the sock.

If I was home, I kept watch. Weeks passed. One, two, perhaps three. The egg showed no signs of life.

Eventually I asked my mother if she thought it would ever hatch. She said probably not. Not after this long.

“Should I crack it open?” I asked.

“You could, if you want to,” she said.

“What’s going to be inside?”

“I don’t know.”

“If it’s not a duck, will it be rotten?”

“I don’t know. You might want to take it far from the house, just in case.”

I cradled the egg in my hands and walked gingerly out to one of the fields in search of the right place. I spotted a big, flat fieldstone that could work. Whatever was in the shell could rest on the rock long enough for me to see it, study it…care for it.

I squatted, held the long-nurtured egg and apologized to the little life it might have been—might be?—and then slowly, lightly, tapped the shell.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” I murmured. “I’m so sorry…I’m so sorry.” I tapped, but still lightly. Tears came slowly. “I’m so sorry…” tap-tap. “I’m so, so sorry…” tap-tap-tap.

The shell gave way. I pulled it apart gently, as close to the rock as possible, to ease its contents onto the unforgiving surface.

Slimy yolk and whites slid out. It didn’t smell. A goopy, blood-colored spot made my stomach lurch. But…was it fertilized? If I’d regulated its temperature more precisely, might it have formed into a duckling?

I couldn’t bear to look at it.

On my way back to the house, I questioned myself, Should I have stayed home from school to watch over the egg? Should I have bought an incubator?

“What was in it?” my mother asked when I came in the back door.

“Nothing.” I looked at her. “It was just a regular egg.”

“Was it rotten?”

“No.”

I thought of the red spot and I felt a breaking—deep inside.

This short memoir piece is a modified reprint by Ann Kroeker, first written for The High Calling and Foundations for Laity Renewal. Reprinted with permission. 

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