mothers and daughters

If you’ve been reading my posts in the last few weeks, you know that as I sat next to my grandpa the week he was dying, I was reading Rae Meadows’ new novel Mothers and Daughters. It was the perfect novel to read as I said goodbye to Spencer because so much of the story for me was about grief and loss and letting go.

The novel is told from the perspective of three generations of women—a grandmother, mother, and daughter. Violet left New York for the Midwest at age eleven on one of the turn-of-the-century orphan trains. Iris, Violet's daughter, now dying of cancer, has relocated to Florida and reflects on her mother, Violet, her daughter, Sam, and the love she discovered late in life. Sam, an artist and new mother living in Madison, is dealing with her mother’s death and the loss of her first pregnancy as she navigates early motherhood and tries to find her way back into her creative work and out of the secretive isolation she has created for herself.

So much in this novel resonated with me: needing to find balance between creativity and motherhood, coming to terms with loss, finding one’s way back to oneself. So I’m very pleased to have Rae here today to discuss Mothers and Daughters, writing, and how motherhood has affected her work. Welcome, Rae!

KH:  Can you talk a little about how this book started? Was it with an image, a character, an idea?

RM:  Learning about the orphan trains really was what got this novel started for me, and, soon after, the character of Violet was born. I actually based her on a photograph of my grandmother when she was young.

KH:  You’ve woven together three stories in three voices and alternating chapters. Did you always know that the book would be structured this way? Did you write them separately and then splice them together? I’d love if you would talk a little bit about your process.

RM:  I started out wanting to write a three-story structure—I was inspired by The Hours by Michael Cunningham—but when I got started, I had a hard time envisioning the novel as a whole. It seemed more manageable to write each part separately. I wrote Violet first, then Sam, then Iris. The revision process was very important for this book because I had to make sure the spliced stories worked with each other, both thematically and chronologically.

KH:  What did this involve? I’d love a sense of how long this revision process took. I’m picturing you on the floor with chapters spread out around you.

RM:  At one point I really did have chapters and scissors! And lists of who was born when, what happened where, etc. But I liked the challenge of it. It was kind of like a puzzle. And then I added details and scenes to fill out the narrative and cohere the novel. In the end it didn’t take as long as I feared.

KH:  A big part of this story for me was about the power of loss and how loss can isolate us from the people in our lives. One of the things we learn early in the book is that Sam terminated her first pregnancy because the fetus had genetic anomalies. How did you settle on this kind of loss to haunt Sam?

RM:  I had my children on the older side, so my husband and I had to weigh the risks of genetic testing and address all the possibilities. I felt like for Sam, it’s a complicated loss because she chose to terminate yet on some level she regrets that decision and doesn’t feel she’s allowed to grieve. I wanted to make her complicit in her loss, because it becomes a secret for her that gathers weight instead of fading.

KH:  What was the most surprising and/or challenging thing that happened in the process of writing Mothers & Daughters? (In terms of the narrative itself, your writing process, or how you approached the material.) 

RM:  I started out writing the novel as pure historical fiction, with two other characters at the turn of the century, including a doctor at the Wisconsin Insane Asylum. But when I returned to writing after having a baby, the idea didn’t feel right. After this tremendous life change, I knew I wanted to explore motherhood in some way. It was very much a lightning bolt moment to do a three-generational novel about women. (I’m still waiting for the lightning on my next project…)

KH:  I love this, Rae. Each of the women in the story has a very different experience mothering and being a mother. Was this a deliberate decision? How did your own experience with early motherhood help shape (or not shape) the ways Violet, Sam and Iris experienced motherhood?

RM:  It was a deliberate decision. Sam was heavily influenced by my experience as a new mother, but I really wanted to explore motherhood in different iterations. As a writer, I found it compelling to imagine how the circumstances of one’s life (and even one’s mother’s and grandmother’s lives) affect how one mothers. I liked the idea of legacy, for better and for worse. I couldn’t have written this novel before having children.

KH:  You have two children, and one is a baby. Can you talk a little about how your writing life fits in with the rest of your life—mothering, family?

RM: It doesn’t fit! As you know, it’s a crazy juggling act to be a mother and a writer. I am a full time mom, so writing happens in short bursts, late at night. I try to remind myself that this stage, with the girls so young, is a short one. My writing life will open back up. I try to remember that writing is not a race. If a novel takes an extra year to complete, that’s okay.

KH:  Can you describe the editorial process? (How much did you revise the manuscript after it was sold? Can you also talk a little about what it’s like to work with an editor?)

RM:  I spoke with my editor (Helen Atsma) before I sold the novel to Henry Holt, so I knew that I liked her and trusted her vision. It’s always a little scary to get the first round of editor’s notes back on a manuscript—I generally have a mini freak out—but Helen’s comments were clear and felt doable for me, and not that extensive. Most were about adding here and there to fill out the stories. For instance, she wanted more items in the box of Iris’s, and she wanted the box to arrive earlier. The story of Sam needed the most help, probably because she’s the character most like me! There were a couple little things I didn’t agree with, but Helen didn’t make me do anything I felt strongly against.

KH:  How does it feel to have this book out in the world? What kinds of responses are you getting from readers?

RM:  It’s wonderful to have the book out and I feel incredibly lucky. It’s so satisfying to have people read your work and have it resonate with them. Often people have a favorite character of the three—usually Violet. A lot of women tell me they cried, and that is a huge compliment. One of the most flattering comments came from the owner of a bookstore in Chicago. Given the character of Iris, she thought I would be in my seventies.

KH:  One more question: what are you working on now?

RM:  I loved the research part of this novel so much I decided to do it again. I’m writing an interwoven story about a family in the Oklahoma panhandle during the Dust Bowl and the photographer Dorothea Lange.

KH:  Fascinating! I look forward to reading. And thank you for taking the time to be here today.

Add Mothers and Daughters to your reading list! And to read more about orphan trains, visit Rae's website. 

celebrating spencer

Saturday we held the service for my grandpa, and it was lovely. There were tears, of course, but there was also lots of laughter as people stood up and shared their memories of my grandpa—his optimism, his integrity, his sense of humor, and his extraordinary golf swing.

I read the piece I wrote last week about Grandpa’s nine lives (which I’ll now tweak and submit), and we watched the short video that was made about him a couple of years ago. (I wish I could stream it online, because it’s perfectly my grandpa…)

And Saturday morning, there was this wonderful news obituary in the Minneapolis Star Tribune. Check it out here.

I know I’ve spent a lot of time writing about him here recently, and I’ve all but abandoned my author interviews. But I’m back now, and am looking forward to having Rae Meadows as a guest later this week and Lisa Catherine Harper in the next month. So stay tuned!

Thank you, as always, for your words and for reading. 

on being a writer

I haven’t had much time to sit down and really write these last weeks. Between my grandpa dying, a trip up north, a non-writing related freelance project, and limited childcare, I just haven’t had the time to spirit myself off to the coffee shop.

And this bothers me. It makes me feel unmoored, as if there is nothing holding me in place, keeping me from scattering here and there with the details of my life.

It’s interesting, then, that in the last few days, three friends have e-mailed me essays and quotes about being a writer. It’s as if they knew, somehow, that I needed that reminder.

This is the first. It’s an Ira Glass quote from Sally McGraw’s blog Already Pretty. Sally takes the quote and writes a wonderful post about how style evolves. But I love it for what it says to beginning writers:

What nobody tells people who are beginners — and I really wish someone had told this to me —  is that all of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, and it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase. They quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know it’s normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.

You’ve gotta fight your way through. I love that, and it speaks to something that I often say here and to my students: don’t ever give up. Keep writing. Even when it’s hard. Even when you get rejected. Even when you don’t have time. Take an hour or twenty minutes and sit down and put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard).

The next piece sent to me was a link to M. Molly Backes’ post on how to be a writer. A mother, whose daughter wants to be a writer, asked Molly what she needed to do to help her daughter. The mother was looking for some formula, some camp that would help her daughter realize her dream. I love Molly’s response. And it reminded me, as a mother, how I can best support my daughters’ dreams: love them, support them, and let them see me following my own dreams--working hard, never giving up.

And the last piece, also sent by one of my wonderful former students, was Jhumpa Lahiri’s recent essay, “Trading Stories: Notes from an apprenticeship,” in The New Yorker. I love Lahiri’s stories, so I loved reading about her journey into writing, her determination, the way she found a home at her desk.

Each of these pieces buoys me, and each reminds me that I am, indeed, a writer.

I have cleared my morning today, and will make my way to the coffee shop after I run and after I drop the girls at their 2-day-a-week summer program. And I will sit down and write the piece for my grandpa’s memorial service (which is Saturday). And I will let the words that emerge ground me in my dreams once again. 

trees for faith's lodge

Faith's Lodge, where I hold my annual writing retreat for mothers, was devastated in a storm that hit Western Wisconsin on July 1st.

The lodge provides a place where parents and families facing the serious illness or death of a child can retreat to reflect on the past, renew strength for the present, and build hope for the future. And one of the most amazing things about spending time there is being able to walk (or snow shoe or ski) through the 80 acres of forest that surround the lodge. A huge portion of the trees on those 80 acres were destroyed, and the families who were planning on spending time at the lodge this month have had to postpone their visits.

There will be an open house on September 17th to restore the hope at Faith's Lodge, but if you want to donate money to plant a tree, contact the Lodge at 612-825-2073 or info@faithslodge.org or donate online here.

I have seen how time at Faith's Lodge can help families heal. Help them replant today!

ready

Thank you all so much for your thoughts and prayers over the last couple of weeks. I know all of you have experienced the deaths of loved ones, and I know many of these loved ones were too young to die.

At 102, Spencer wasn’t too young. But as I sat by him in those last days I realized that the fact he was ready to go and had lived an incredibly long and happy life didn’t take away the hard parts of letting go.

When my mom called early Thursday morning and D answered the phone, I knew Grandpa was gone. When D hung up, I said, “Grandpa died.”

“Yes.”

“Thank God,” I said. And then, “I’ll go.”

Because Spencer had been so determined to live life on his own terms, I thought his determination to die—when he decided he was ready—would make it happen quickly. I was convinced that he would go Monday night. But Tuesday morning when I arrived at my mom’s, he was there, still ticking, though much weaker. I sat by him and swabbed his mouth when he was thirsty. He was still able to talk, to say goodbye to those who visited him. But he seemed uncomfortable. And Tuesday evening, as my mom was sitting by him, he said, “Why can’t I just die?”

His wonderful doctor, who has cared for him since he and my grandma moved into the apartment in my mom’s house fourteen years ago, came to the house on Tuesday night after a full day of work, to see Grandpa. I know Grandpa was hoping for something to end it—he’d said as much to my mom a few days earlier—and I imagine that when the doctor explained that he couldn’t do that, my grandpa was devastated. I wonder if Grandpa was thinking of all the hunting dogs he had owned in his life. They were dearly loved, but when they became too old or sick to walk—to enjoy being dogs—he put them down.

It does seem unjust that we can do that for animals and not people. But I wonder if there is something in that hard letting go, the slow shutting down of organs, that is somehow necessary—to experience, to witness. I’m not sure.

Early Thursday morning, my younger sister and I both said goodbye to Grandpa’s body. But of course it wasn’t really Grandpa anymore, just a shell. He was gone. My mom called my older sister, who was just leaving her house to catch an early plane to the Twin Cities. We could hear her crying through the phone. She didn’t make it on time to say goodbye. But she hadn’t seen his deterioration over the last week, and I think the shock of seeing him as he was the day he died—when he looked very little like the man she had seen a couple of weeks ago—would have been almost incomprehensible. She decided she didn’t want to see the body.

My younger sister had to go back home and sleep before heading to work, but I decided to stay at my mom’s until the Cremation Society people came. I tried to lie down on my mom’s couch, but it seemed wrong to leave Grandpa alone downstairs, so I returned to his bedside, and my mom and I alternated sitting there with him.

At 5:30 a.m. they came for his body, and I left, not wanting to see it taken out.

When I got home, both girls were curled up next to D in our bed, as if they sensed the need to be together. I scooted the girls over and lay down on the sliver of bed remaining. And I just lay there, half asleep, half awake, until the girls woke up. I told them that Great-Gahgee had died. I told them again that he had lived a long life, and they we would remember him. They both looked serious, and we hugged, and then D took them down to get them ready for their two-day-a-week summer program. And I slept deeply for three hours.

On Friday, we left for my mom’s cabin, where my family converged on Friday evening. We sat on the deck that my step-dad had just built, with the ramp for Grandpa’s wheelchair. “Great-Gahgee would have loved to sit out here, wouldn’t he?” I said to Stella.

“We’ll have to sit here for him,” she said.

I nodded. “That’s a wonderful idea.”  

I’ve been dreaming of him, and they are odd, confused dreams. I’ve been sleeping a ton. (Partly because I woke with a bad cold on Saturday morning.) But this morning, I woke up ready to write again.

A couple of years ago, when my piece “Becoming a Sanvicenteña” appeared in Brevity, I took my mom’s computer down to show Grandpa. (It was a publication of which I was/still am particularly proud.) He sat in his recliner, squinting at the computer, and when he finished he looked up and said, “Pretty good stuff.” And then he said, “You know, you could write a piece like that about me. About my nine lives.”

I put away the computer and found a tiny piece of paper and began taking notes, recording his brushes with death.

Last week, as he lay dying, I searched desperately for these notes, but I couldn’t find them on the mess of my desk. And when I tried to get him to recreate the details for me, he couldn’t. It was too late to talk about near death as he lay dying.

I found them on Thursday morning after I woke up from my long nap. “Thank God,” I said again. “Thank God.”

1/19/1909 – 6/30/2011

My grandpa, Spencer Nelson, died early this morning.

In the coming days and weeks, I’m sure I’ll write more about my last days with him, but for now, I'll just post a few photos.

Grandpa and Grandma were florists. Here he stands with a bouquet.

He served in WWII as a Military Police officer on stateside trains. (Because of a knee injury he was ineligible to fight.)

Here with my Grandma, my mom, and his mother-in-law on a weekend home.

50th wedding anniversary. 

At the cabin. Notice his t-shirt: "You can always tell a Swede. But you can't tell him much."

So much attitude.

One of many tricks he devised to still be able to swing the club and not fall over after he lost his balance. 

I love him and I miss him already. May his optimism, which never wavered, live on.

Thank you for all you warm thoughts and prayers over the last days. I can’t tell you how much it’s meant to me.

some thoughts on dying

Warning: This is long and tangential. It’s the only way I can write it.

On Thursday afternoon, my mom was helping my grandpa walk to the door, when Grandpa’s legs gave out and both he and my mom went down. He didn’t have a stroke; he just didn’t have any strength left in his legs, couldn’t put any weight on them.

Luckily, my step-dad was home, and was able to carry Grandpa back to his bed. (Even at 102, Grandpa has some heft to him.) Later, after Grandpa realized that he wouldn’t be able to stand, even with help, he and my mom talked about what he wanted to do, what came next. “This isn’t the kind of life I want to live,” he said. “It’s not worth it.”

Understand: My grandpa is one of the most active people I know. Being stuck indoors in his reclining chair all winter was difficult enough for him, but he always had the hope that as soon as spring came (and then after his hospitalization and the placement of the pace maker) he would be out, cruising the River Road in his borrowed electric wheelchair. “I can even pack a picnic lunch,” he’d said. And I know he had dreams of finding some other old geezer sitting on a bench, someone he could talk to, someone who could relate.

Thursday afternoon I was at a meeting, and when I came home, D said that my mom had called and they were going to start hospice care. We were there in a half hour, and when we arrived at her house, my sister and nephew were there too. My mom and step-dad. D and I went downstairs to see him.

“Hi Grandpa,” I said, and he smiled, “Well Katy, D., hello.”

I sat down next him and reached for his hand. “Well,” he said, “I’ve had a great life.” His voice wavered. “I had great parents, a great family—Lucille, Nancy.”

“And wonderful granddaughters,” I said, smiling through my tears.

“Ha! And wonderful granddaughters,” he agreed.

I started to cry. D put his hand on my shoulder.

“I’m ready to go. I’m not scared,” he said. “I know what’s going to happen. I’m not in pain.”

How many people get to do this? Grandpa was totally lucid, seemed fine, really, other than not having much physical strength. “I won’t be eating anything solid now,” he said. What he wanted was strained oyster stew—just the broth—which my sister fixed for him in the next room, and which he drank through a straw. (It smelled disgusting to us, but he thought it was delicious.)

Grandpa raised his head from the pillow. “Stella is going to really be something,” he said. “She’s a bright one.” He laughed. “She takes after her grandfather.”

Stella was the first great-grandchild, and she and Grandpa have something special, I think—a connection. When Stella was a week old, baking under the phototherapy lights in the NICU, Grandpa stood above her with tears in his eyes, his hands clutching the edge of the warming table, and said, “Well, she has all her fingers and all her toes.” I think at that point he had thought we were keeping something from him. Maybe he thought she wouldn’t make it. I remember wondering then if his own losses—several miscarriages and a stillbirth before my mother was finally born—hovered close to the surface. Do they ever fade completely?

Now, whenever Stella is at my mom’s, she draws a picture for Grandpa, her Great-Gahgee, and tacks it to his refrigerator. She always remembers to speak loudly when she talks to him, leaning in to give him a hug in his chair. I had hoped that he and Zoë would have time to develop the same kind of bond, but she’s three, and well, that’s all: She’s three, and I’m much more lenient with my three-year-old than Grandpa thinks I should be. I hold her when she whines, let her drag me upstairs in the middle of a conversation, let her run around naked (a battle I’m not willing to fight).

I wanted Stella to understand that Grandpa was dying so she could really say good-bye, but maybe she’s too young? I’m not sure. She first asked about death years ago, after Mimi died. (For those of you who don’t know, Mimi was the woman with whom D and I lived after we were married.)

After Mimi died, I explained that Mimi was gone, but that she would live on in our memory, that we could look at pictures of her and remember her.

“But where did she go?”

“Well,” I said. “Her body just stopped working. She’s not alive anymore.”

What did she say to that? I can’t remember.

“Some people believe that you go to heaven when you die,” I started, not sure how I could make this idea tangible for her.

“But where is that?”

“Well, it’s not really a place.” I paused. “It’s like in Lion King after Simba’s father died, and Simba looked up into the sky and saw Mufasa in the clouds.”

I’m not sure if it made sense then, and I’m not sure if it would help now. Coincidentally, Stella’s spring dance performance was to “He Lives In You” from Lion King

I don’t know why I love that song so much, but a couple of weeks ago I downloaded it from iTunes and now, as I run along the river, I listen to it over and over again, goose bumps prickling my skin as I cross the Mississippi and then cross it again in my loop. (I know. I’m totally cheesing out these days. I can just imagine you rolling your eyes as you read this.)

Interestingly, it has only been since my grandpa started to die that I have felt like a runner again. In the last months, my heart and head haven’t been in it (even though my running injuries have mostly healed…) My legs have felt heavy, my breathing strained. It’s as if, having made it through what has been a very stressful and often-difficult year, my body was worn down. But how could I, at 39, be worn down when my grandpa, at 102, was not?

As I ran yesterday, I felt strong for the first time in a long time. My mind was trying to make connections between my thoughts, which are all over the place: My grandpa, whom I love, is dying. A couple of friends, whom I love, are trying desperately to conceive. My mother, who has cared for her father for years, and who is fully in charge of helping him die, is exhausted, resigned to his death at the same time she still feels glimmers of hope for a recovery (even as she realizes how ridiculous that is). Death, life. Death, life.

Thursday night when I put Stella to bed, my eyes red and puffy from crying, I told Stella what Grandpa had said about her being really something, and she smiled. “You know that he’s dying, honey, right?”

Tears started to run from her eyes, catching on the bridge of her nose, dripping into her hair. “You’re making me sad,” she said, her voice accusing.

“I know. I’m sorry. I just want you to be able to say goodbye to him.”

“I want to catch him one more fish,” she said, the tears coming faster.

Last summer, Stella caught a bass that D cleaned and filleted, and my mom and I breaded and fried with butter and lemon. Then Stella and Grandpa sat across from each other eating, contentedly absorbed in their meal.

“Oh honey, that’s so sweet,” I said, hugging her close.

On Friday, my grandpa was still so lucid—he seemed fine, really—that my mom asked him whether he had made his decision to die in haste. “You don’t need to do this now, Dad,” she said. But he insisted: “I’m ready to go.” Friday was the twelfth anniversary of my grandma’s death—they were married for 67 years—and I think part of him wanted to go then, on the same day. But he didn’t. He talked about the memorial service we’d have for him. He gave my brother-in-law his golf clubs.

And on Saturday he was much weaker. He insisted on saying his goodbyes, telling D and others to “have a great life.”

“I’m ready to slip away,” he said.

I wanted to tell him what? That I wouldn’t be who I am if it weren’t for him? That he will live on in each of us? I would have loved to say that soon he’d be reunited with my grandma—how comforting would that be?—but my grandpa is a life-long atheist, and he would have told me I was full of crap. I was able to choke out only this: “You know how much you’ve meant to me, Grandpa, Right?” He nodded.

When he slept, I sat next to him, reading, giving my mom a break. I started Rae Meadows’ new novel, Mothers and Daughters, on Friday. Rae sent it to me a few months ago, and I had been anxious to start reading it, but I couldn’t have anticipated how perfect it would be for me right now, as I sit next to Grandpa. It’s a story of mothers and daughters—a story about connection, grief and letting go. (I hope to have Rae as a guest here at Mother Words in the next couple of weeks…)

Yesterday, Mom took a walk and then a nap, and as I sat beside Grandpa, I read, and then I stared at him, and read some more. I fed him a sip of water through the straw when he was thirsty, but his eyes were closed most of the time. He wasn’t interested in talking. When he fell deeply asleep, his cheeks puffed out slightly with each exhalation. But his breathing was labored, and there were more and more long pauses between breaths. With each of these, I looked up from my book, holding my own breath, thinking, Let this be it. Let go, Grandpa. And then: Oh Grandpa, I love you. But his chest always stuttered into action again.

Something is clearly going on in his lungs—filling with fluid maybe? When he breathes it sounds like the fizzing of a newly opened can of soda.

I tried to commit him to memory even though he wouldn’t want to be remembered this way: with sunken cheeks, the tendons visible in his neck, straining when he swallows. He would want to be remembered as a young man, all early-century swagger, or next to his love Lucille on their 50^th wedding anniversary—my Grandma dressed in her teal dress, Grandpa next to her, his frame solid, smiling in his gray suit, his hand on Grandma’s lower back—or on the golf course, yes on the golf course where he spent thousands and thousands of hours perfecting his game.

During a break yesterday, when my mom was sitting with him downstairs, I stood at her kitchen window and watched the neighbor across the street mulch her garden. I listened to the sputtering hum of a mower down the block, the steady ticking of the clock on the mantle, the birds chirping in the tree outside. The sweet juice of an orange filled my mouth and I felt oddly content. This—these small moments, loving everything fully—are what make up a life, no?

I lay down on my mom’s couch and picked up Meadows’ novel again, and this is what I turned to (from one of the chapters in Samantha’s perspective—she is the daughter in the novel):

In a span of months she had been present for birth and for death, the wondrous first breath and the horrible last. But wasn’t it an honor to be there at the end of a life as well as the beginning? To mark the extraordinariness of a lifetime, to bear witness to its completion? Could she ever convince herself of that?

I’m convinced.