When memories are gifts

           Before I say anything else, thanks to all who have served. Let us not forget.

***

       

 I thought today of a book I read in 1973. I don’t remember its title or the names of the protagonists, but the heroine’s baby was stillborn and her little boy, named Chris just as mine was, was killed in an accident. I had nightmares about her Chris and mine, and I knew then that I’d never have a child die in a book. Children die, I know they do, but I can’t bear it any better now than I could then. (Note: My Chris is fine--it was the child in the book who died--but I still couldn't stand it.)

          I read a book once where a chapter ended with the words “…she cried and cried and cried.”

          I read a book where the author made liberal use of the word “quipped.” No one ever joked or grinned or snickered or snorted laughter, but every-damn-body quipped.

          I read a book called The Silver Cord. The heroine’s mother-in-law was possessive and vindictive. She didn’t have a single, solitary redeeming trait, yet her otherwise very intelligent son could see no wrong in anything she said or did.

          I remember from Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm the verse:

          Woodman, spare that tree;

          Touch not a single bough.

          In youth it sheltered me,

          And I’ll protect it now.

And from Little Women I remember to "…don't let the sun go down upon your anger. Forgive each other, help each other, and begin again tomorrow."

And from another book the warm comfort of “…murmured wordlessly…”

And from yet another, the punch of a one-sentence paragraph at the end of a chapter or scene. Do the words “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn” ring a bell?

These are only a few things I remember from books I have read. There are many more. Some of them have improved or changed my own writing—I never use the word “quip” and I don’t write characters with no redeeming qualities or men who think their mothers are perfect. I probably use the one-sentence paragraph ending too often and I’m sure I’ve plagiarized the words “cried and cried and cried” though I’m not sure when or where. I’ve learned, from reading things like “…murmured wordlessly”, that for my writing at least, emotion is the driving force.

Some have impacted marriage—I don’t go to bed mad. Some, like the verse in Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, haven’t changed anything.

But I remember that verse 50 years after I read the book. I “knew” Vermont 30 years before I went there because I read and reread Understood Betsy. When we went to Ireland, I felt Nora Roberts’ Born In… Trilogy everywhere we went.

Writers get asked a lot about why we write. Why we struggle on, and on in the ever-changing world of publishing. The answers are as varied as we are. But this post is about why I read and have done so nonstop since the very first book in the Dick and Jane series. The first word in the first book was “Look.” I remember.

I read not only for the pleasure of doing so, but for the things I remember. The things that change me. Or don’t. The things that make me laugh and cry and wait. After reading that first “Look”, I never looked back.

What do you remember?