Reflection on Rachel Papers Post

I like Rachel Power's Blog. She posts regularly, not often. Each post is worth a read. Her blog style is brief and thought provoking sans provocation.

Below is a link to a post which has had a residual effect on my thoughts. If you've ever been interested in writing bout family or beloved-ones, you may enjoy. I'm clearer on why I don't write about my family than I am about why I'm compelled to do so.

Extract from The Rachel Papers:
The Ethics of Writing about those We Love (click title for full post)
April 5th 2009

"I have found myself having a lot of discussions with people of late about the ethical problems of writing about our families — those thorny issues of boundaries and consent.

Writers, particularly, rarely avoid writing about the people they are intimate with. So, do we have a responsibility to ask our subjects’ permission to publish material about them, even if fictionalised?"

In her comments section I posted this:

D said...

Hello,

This is an interesting topic. My mother took her own life two.5 years ago and I used to write about it. I was cornered by a family member for writing about my mother on my blog. I deleted it.

Now I don't write about it any more. Not even on my computer. I wanted to write about it more, but I stopped. I stopped because, even though she isn't here, if I were ever to focus and aim to publish my account of her story I fear my tarnishing of her memory.

Yet ... I feel as silenced by her memory as I did by her presence. I wonder and fear that one day this (inner) dam will burst. And though I fear it, I suspect I have nothing to fear and more to give by writing about my dear, poor mother's dilemma.

Truths hurts. Written words last forever. Truths can change...um.

Thanks for posting this topic. It's reminded me to remember to, at the very least, not bury My Truth along with my mother and her lies.

Toodle Pip

April 10, 2009 9:59 PM

And Rachel replied with this:

Rachel Power said...

That is such a massive thing to be absorbing, on every level I imagine. Especially as a mother yourself. There is such a blurred line between our lives and those around us, and while writing about other people's lives is tricky territory, surely we all have a right to our own stories, and our own experience. Don't we? Particularly when it comes to our own mothers, where the relationship is so intense and internal--so much a part of us. I can imagine that writing about a mother's suicide, for example, might be vital in coming to grips with such a trauma. And it is when we are at our most truthful and open, that we really touch others and give them a deep sense of solace and relief. In this way, to write is a hugely generous act. I always loved Anais Nin's statement that if you are willing to turn the same cold hard lense on yourself that you use in describing others, then it can only be seen as fair. I hope at some point, D., the need overtakes the fear.

April 11, 2009 10:40 PM

The Nin quote is worth repeating, if only as an exercise for me to forge it letter by letter for my memory's sake: "...if you are willing to turn the same cold hard lense on yourself that you use in describing others, then it can only be seen as fair."

This is an extract from my recent writing that Rachel's blog + comment, my trip to Melbourne to be with friends and time partly inspired:

"I've been arguing a case [in my head] against my mother's murderer. I’m so emotionally conflicted over her death that in my own mind I’ve built a court of law to bring the accused forward to answer for the crime that took our mother from us. Odd but true. The moment I was told that she had killed herself I stopped protecting and defending her behaviour; internally that is.

Externally, we still protect and defend her and on many levels this is killing my brother and I. No-one but us (and my husband) know her real story. She kept a sheer and shiny exterior. I don’t know how, but she did. This lead to our being misunderstood and isolated by mum’s community, bar just a small handful of people who have been brave enough to comfort two devastated and angry adult children.

Grief says: ‘Who the fuck killed my mother? I want justice.’ Then the Truth pops in and says ‘Your mother killed your mother.’ It’s at this point that everything in me splits and I go numb, again. This truth makes my primal self scream. After 2 years the scream has (d)evolved into a muzzled moan.

I point my finger at the accused with a self-righteousness and list all her breeches of moral law: betrayals, lies, conspiracies, stealing, hypocrisies, narcissism, fraud. Then I plot the years, months, weeks and hours leading to the murder to prove that it was indeed murder - not manslaughter or temporary insanity - planed and plotted for years in advance. I show the jury the diaries proving the tragedy no accident, nor a slip in time and rational thinking. My mind’s courtroom is stilled by its empathy for the victim and her family. It’s a grand and emotional scene. They hear of how the victim was a model citizen; a widow, a catholic primary school teacher, the girl next door who married the handsomest Italian in town, who had died from a long, cruel battle with cancer 15 years prior. My mother’s murderer is soon to be proven a-moral, evil and guilty. I turn to the judge and jury as I deliver my final damning statement as an attempt to doom the guilty. But as I turn to deliver the unequivocal truth reality returns. My grief exits stage left and I find that I'm standing alone in an empty room. It’s just little me and big injustice in an empty room, in my own mind, wearing an aftertaste on my bitter, broken breath that mouths "...Oh fuck, the killer got away".

Personal grief-driven mythologies aside, the truth is that all of the above is true. My mother was taken by a brute in cold blood. This brute stole, lied, conspired and plotted then ended my mother's life. She was stolen from us before her time. She was tricked and manipulated. Ultimately she died alone in a hotel room believing that her children didn't love her leaving pages upon pages of bitter letters accusing them as the motive for her death. Whoever the person(a) was who penned these lies and made her sign the letters was indeed without a soul. Some might call it mental illness. I don't care what it was. I only know what happened and I know that it happened in a vacuum bereft of spirit.

The pit of my grief is not that we lost our mum, but that she died alone and without love. I struggle."

Is it wrong to publish this?