memories

I’ll Write Again

/ Elizabeth Gaucher / 4 Comments

Dear Mom and Dad —

I miss you, and I don’t. But mostly I do.

Some days I miss you both at the same, and some days I only miss one of you and not so much the other.

I suppose in those ways it’s not so different from when you were alive. There are days of deep connection and need, and days of pleasant distance. As has always been true.

I realized today that for the first time one of your grandchildren is going to college, it’s official. And you won’t know it. But I have to believe you know it. You were both such champions of education, public and private and all the in-between, I have to believe you left this life in confidence that those of us left behind would keep moving that needle in a wide variety of ways.

Mom, I’m spraying this gorgeous new perfume by St. Clair in Vermont. I use it in front of your bridal portrait, which is on my dresser. You would love it.

Dad, I’ve been thinking a lot about the things you left behind that you held onto for decades. Things like your honorary pins from junior high school and high school and college.

Things like that notepad I found when we cleaned out Grandmother’s house. “Things to do today — get out of town before it’s too late.”

It’s getting easier to write again.

I can talk to you now without a reaction, or a game plan, or a response. I can say things to you — I realize it’s not quite fair, I’m not talking to you — things that I need to express, things that were never things I could just tell you. I’m thinking a lot about how as a parent I’m sure it’s a forever challenge to not respond, to just listen and receive and sit with things, because we are supposed to give advice. We are supposed to help and guide and be part of who they are. Or so we are told.

But as my own child grows up, I don’t know. I just don’t know.

I think it’s okay to be quiet.

I think it’s important to be quiet.

I think it’s good to stand in the shadows, and occasionally clear my throat. But to stay right in the shadow of who she is becoming.

I’m sorry it was so hard at the end. I suppose like every other person who has ever lived, I wanted a way to make the bad things go away. I couldn’t do that. But I wanted to.

Anyway, I love you both. And now, yeah…..I’m missing you both. Insert tearful cursing.

I’ll write again.

For all of us.

E.

#2, Winter 2015-16: Five New Essays + Eric Drzewianowski = Your Longridge Review

/ Elizabeth Gaucher / Leave a comment

This is a special re-blog for friends of Esse Diem and for lovers of the Essays on Childhood project. I hope you enjoy the latest from Longridge Review.

Issue #2 is here, and it’s special. dski design will show you the most beautiful handmade books, and a diverse group of essayists offer up their strangest, darkest, and most contemplative moments from their crossings out of childhood into adulthood. Much shadow in this issue, but also rays of light:

  • Listen

Daniel Blokh (Alabama) didn’t tell us when he submitted his work that he was only 14 years old, and his writing is so sophisticated and complex we never thought to ask. When he turned in his bio, we had a conundrum. Our mission is to work with the writings of adults only reflecting on childhood. But Daniel is that rare old soul who makes you want to break the rules for art. Using song lyrics, book quotes, and his own poetry, Daniel addresses an unidentified “Y” in a series of short letters about life, family, identity, loss, and finding your way to yourself. Take your time with this, it’s a beauty.

  •  Thanksgiving Mourning

Vincent J. Fitzgerald  (New Jersey) is willing to do that thing that is so painful, he is willing to unmask a father who seems to only know how to hurt his family. No excuses, no defense. Not for his father, nor for himself years later when he begins to live out the same pattern. This is what courage looks like, facing fear rather than denying it.

  • A Steady Application

Trista Hurley-Waxali (California) weaves a masterful, mysterious narrative about her mother. Why does her mother “wear the red lips” at night as she creeps down the hallway, leaving Trista to peer through the dark and pray for her mother’s safe return? A Steady Application chills like a thriller, but it was one woman’s childhood experience. This is why we do what we do.

  •  The Mark I Left

Kara Knickerbocker (Pennsylvania) offers something touching and unaffected in her first piece of creative nonfiction. On one level, it’s a simple story about a little girl and a new pet. But Kara offers just enough allusion to heavier truths to let the reader know nothing is simple on this day, at this house, with these people. Read her essay sitting down. It almost knocked us over more than once.

  •  The Egg

Jane Rosenberg LaForge (New York) is an accomplished writer who turns her pen to her childhood obsession with an egg sculpture in her mother’s closet. Jane follows her musings, as those threads lead her to her individual parents’ identities and insecurities, as well as her own. The conclusion is a tour-de-force surprise of personal, indefatigable power.

You can find it all and more right here: Longridge Review #2, Winter 2015-16.

p.s. Want to write for us? See submission guidelines here: Longridge Review SUBMIT