What is the date you began writing this memoir and the date when you completed the memoir? After my mother died in January, 2009, I started writing letters to her. It was therapy for me – a way to get through the grief and anxiety that I thought was lasting way longer than “normal.” I never intended for the letters to evolve into a book. Later, I decided to add some family history and narrative to the letters with the goal of giving a copy of the manuscript to our children and grandchildren. My purpose: so they wouldn’t forget Grandma Betty.
When our adult kids read the manuscript, they encouraged me to write it for a wider audience and publish it. It was a difficult decision as my mom was a very private person, and she wasn’t around anymore to ask how she felt about me sharing details of her life with the world.
I finally made peace with that, knowing Mom, a nurse, (BELOW) would be pleased with how many people her story could help. The proceeds from book sales will all be used for nursing scholarships. I spent another year re-writing her story for publication, finishing in September, 2020.
If you’ve done the math, you’ve already figured out that it took me 12 years from start to finish. I should clarify that I wasn’t writing the whole time. As I mentioned, I didn’t know I was writing a book at first. I was self-medicating by writing letters to Mom. It made me feel close to her. In addition, I had a full-time job for most of those years which left me little time to write.
But the main reason for the long stretch of time is that I couldn’t tell the end of the story until a certain amount of time had passed. The unfolding story dictated how long it would take to write the ending and finish the book.
Where did you do most of your writing for this memoir? And please describe in detail. I am most comfortable writing at my desk, probably because I’ve had a desk job involving writing most of my adult life. I never, ever handwrite anything – I even type my grocery lists. I feel like I can’t create without a keyboard in front of me. I do wake up in the night sometimes with an idea and jot it on a scrap of paper in the dark.
I have recently trained myself to compose with a laptop on my lap so that I can use it in the living room, the brightest room in our house. There I have windows all around me, and I enjoy looking up from time to time at the birds gathering around our bird feeders. (Our kids pronounced us “officially old” when we bought and hung bird feeders.) When we go south for part of the winter, I have a view of the beach and ocean as I write, which I find very soothing.
What were your writing habits while writing this memoir- did you drink something as you wrote, listen to music, write in pen and paper, directly on laptop; specific time of day? I have discovered that I need to go through a little ritual before I sit down with my laptop each day. After my morning coffee while watching Good Morning America, I usually throw in a load of laundry, check the mail, wipe off counter tops, start the dishwasher, or organize a kitchen towel drawer – little things like that. It only takes 10-15 minutes, but doing something that makes me feel organized makes my brain function better.
I am probably most productive in the mornings, but I find I can write almost any time of day if I put my mind to it. I don’t listen to music or have the TV on. I prefer no noise at all, like many people my age (70) who grew up without music streaming, cell phones or other devices.
Out of all the specific memories you write about in this memoir, which ONE MEMORY was the most emotional for you to write about? And can you share that specific excerpt with us here. The excerpt can be as short or as long as you prefer, and please provide page numbers as reference. This is a difficult question to answer because there were several emotional moments in my mom’s story. My challenge was to write about emotional events without it being overly emotional, melodramatic or saccharin, but still hold the readers’ interest. I wrote this chapter a couple of years after Mom’s terminal diagnosis, so by then, I felt less traumatized than if I’d written it immediately afterwards. I often wonder how different the story would be if I hadn’t waited a few years to write most of it. I would have remembered more of the details of the experience, but at the time, I was worried that all those memories would hang over me forever. That frightened me – I didn’t want to remember the truly sad and upsetting parts of the experience in detail.
Here’s my excerpt. Chapter 1, Page 1-3, Thirty-Two Days:
Day 1: Dec. 12, 2008
When the doctor walked into my mom’s hospital room, I had a sick feeling he wasn’t bringing good news. He didn’t trivialize the message that he came to deliver by beginning with small talk. Instead, he got right to the point, telling Mom the endometrial cancer for which she’d had surgery a few months earlier was back and had spread throughout her abdomen. There was nothing they could do for her.
Mom turned to my sister and me with a look of stunned disbelief and said, “Well, that’s a bummer.” Not the response you would expect from an 84-year-old woman after hearing a terminal diagnosis, but certainly not an inaccurate one.
My sister Susan and I sat on the small leather sofa, unable to move, trying to absorb what the doctor was telling us. The prognosis was about as bad as it gets. We asked what Mom’s options were. He told us about another of his patients with the same diagnosis who was much younger than Mom. That patient had opted for treatment, he said, “but it didn’t turn out well.”
Because the malignant mass throughout her abdomen had caused a bowel blockage, Mom would not be able to eat or drink without severe nausea. She would probably die of dehydration within a few weeks. The tumor would continue to grow, and she would need strong pain medication.
After a painfully awkward silence, Susan and I finally had the presence of mind to get up off the sofa and go to Mom’s bedside, hold her hand, stroke her hair, and try to offer some measure of comfort. Her doctor asked if we had questions. We did, but where do you begin?
Hearing the prognosis, my mom looked at her doctor and then at us, with tears slowly running down her cheeks, and stoically said, “Just keep me comfortable.” The doctor nodded and quietly left the room.
My mom, Elizabeth Anna McSwain, known to everyone as Betty, was a retired nurse. She raised my brother, my sister, and me by herself, and then traveled the world for 20 years. She’d had her share of challenges in life, including two previous bouts of cancer, but this diagnosis would prove to be her toughest, and it would be her final one. Her life was affected by trauma, but not defined by it. She lived on her terms, and she would die on her terms.
And so began an important chapter in our lives – my mother’s, my sister’s, and mine. We didn’t know it at the time, but our mom had only 32 days left on this earth. A month and a day. I knew it would be awful seeing Mom get weaker, potentially in severe pain, and then watching her die, but I didn’t expect that time to be beautiful as well. During her final days, Susan and I learned more about the imperfect yet remarkable woman who raised us. We reminisced, laughed, and cried. We wrote her obituary together and learned more about our family history, including long-kept secrets that stunned my sister and me.
As the solemn doctor gently laid out my mom’s diagnosis that began her final fight, I could not have expected how this moment would change me. Grieving my mother’s illness and then her death, I felt a strong desire to learn more about the man she married, our father, who was only in my life for a few years. I found not only a hidden treasure of new and fascinating information, but I also developed meaningful relationships with people I’d never met, and I met family members I never knew existed.
Can you describe the emotional process of writing about this ONE MEMORY? I didn’t take any notes during those 32 days between my mom’s terminal diagnosis and her death. A writer friend said to me, “You are keeping a journal, right?” I told her, “No. I don’t want to remember this.”
It turns out I was wrong. I wish I had recorded the events and my feelings. Instead, I relied on my memory, and I frequently consulted my sister who had helped me provide end-of-life care for Mom. Susan is a year older and so she was able to provide details from our childhood, too.
Originally, this excerpt was not the opening chapter of the book. In the final days before publishing, when I thought the book was done, I switched around several chapters. They were more or less in chronological order, and I think reordering them made for a more interesting read.
Were there any deletions from this excerpt that you can share with us? No deletions to speak of for this chapter. For me, writing is the easy part. I put my thoughts on paper without worrying if it’s “good” or not. Then the challenging work begins. I edit, revise, delete, and add; and then I edit, revise, delete and add again many more times. I’m sure some authors get it right on the first or second draft, but I have to put some time between each version and look at it with fresh eyes.
I almost never have writers’ block because I tell myself I’m just writing down all my thoughts – in any order. This method may not apply to fiction or poetry – I have no experience in those areas. Later, I will focus on what’s important and what’s not, rethink the order of chapters, look for typos, and fact check.
Throughout the book I was careful not to mention people by name without their permission. I also was very sensitive to the fact that some of our experiences were too personal to include in a book for the general public – for me and other “characters” – but especially for my mom. I wasn’t interested in writing a tell-all for the sake of selling copies. Profit is secondary to my hope that a lot of people will read “Betty.” In fact, all proceeds from book sales will be used for nursing scholarships in memory of Mom.
Spencer High School Foundation: Betty McSwain Nursing Scholarship – Mary Frank or Tammy Higgins: foundation@spencerschools.org
Kickapoo High School, Viola WI, Angela Egge or Barry Donovan, guidance counselors: aegge@kickapoo.k12.wi.us bdonovan@kickapoo.k12.wi.us
