Write What You Know

Agents, Muses, and Just Call Me Irene: A Memoir

In the last month, I’ve heard from a number of literary agents regarding my query for Just Call Me Irene: A Memoir. Given the sheer volume of queries an agent must receive, I applaud those who take time to send personal responses. And I appreciate their insightful comments.

A good friend asked me if getting ‘rejection’ emails to my queries was discouraging. My answer: “Not at all.” And I meant it. If I had set out to write a book, maybe I’d be discouraged. But I didn’t. I’m an article writer who just happened to weave together enough stories for a book. I believe it’s publish-worthy…just need to find that wonderful agent who agrees.

The quest continues with time-out for the holiday season. I am told literary agents take a break during that time. Is that true? Or an urban myth? Correct me if I’ve been misled.

I just returned from my monthly visit to mom’s long-term care home, acronym MGM, where there is a full-moon every night and the white rabbit lures residents around every corner.

Visiting mom has become a challenge to find the right balance of quality time – for both of us. In the mornings she is alert, almost her younger self. We can have short conversations. She is fascinated to hear about my writing – particularly stories about her. More often than not, she becomes distracted by cars moving in and out of the parking lot (visible from her window). She wonders where my dad parks and asks if I’ve seen him recently. I don’t tell her he passed-away six years ago. She won’t believe me. He is still very alive to her.

Living with mom, during the COVID-19 pandemic, was the incentive I needed to sandwich already-written articles between new stories garnered from the daily interaction with my quirky mother. She became my muse. The enforced lockdown and a closed international border only enhanced the mini-world we lived-in for almost two years.

Maya Angelou says about her muse: “When I’m writing, I write. And then it’s as if the muse is convinced that I’m serious and says, ‘Okay. Okay. I’ll come.’”

That’s how I feel about my relationship with my mom. I was writing words and sentences most days; however, being with mom pushed me in directions I would not have thought to go. And it wasn’t intentional on her part. The deeper down the dementia rabbit-hole she travelled, the more she gave me in terms of inspiration. Sometimes it was tidbits of insight into our family history. More often it was daily events that prompted funny stories I knew HAD to be told. Discovering my own humorous side provided extra seasoning to the story casserole mom was helping me concoct.

So, let us continue our adventure into Just Call Me Irene: A Memoir. In my mind, this chapter, written as a journal entry shortly after my father died, became one of the building blocks for the story.

Excerpt from Chapter 2

            Most superstitions came into being during a time when what made the world tick was far more of a mystery than it is now.  Our ancestors were quick to assign subtexts to events as one of the ways they tried to make sense of an existence that appeared frighteningly capricious and unpredictable.  All manner of occurrences, both the mundane and the unusual, were subject to scrutiny and interpretation. Wild birds that tried to get inside houses (whether they succeeded or not) were also seen as presaging deaths.

                                                www.Snopes.com

2017

I am not a superstitious person.  Have owned many a black cat, have walked under ladders on a sidewalk, and have even (heaven forbid) opened up an umbrella inside a building. However, had I paid attention to the persistent robin which kept trying to get into my house beginning on April 14^th, and several following days, I might have been at least partially prepared for what was to come. 

I tried everything to make the bird go away: cut-outs of large flying birds attached to my deck windows; my collection of wooden, ceramic and stuffed geese (thanks to husband number two who decided I was a “goose person”) lined up on the floor by the sliding door; my Siamese sentry, Sadie, strolling back and forth in the window, tail twitching; and In A Gadda Da Vida played LOUDLY on my Bose. Nothing deterred the crazy bird from hurling itself into the glass door, several times knocking itself senseless for several seconds as it lay on the deck.

 I should have paid attention.

Dad. Larger-than-life for so long. Though he remained optimistic and kept busy, health and age caught up with him. His health had been poor for years but he had worked every day, up until a year or so before, writing books long after retiring from the official work force.  He had survived rheumatic fever, heart problems (including the implantation of a pacemaker) and leukemia, in remission after treatment at Sloane Kettering Hospital in New York in the 1990’s. He was an ardent cat lover. We joked that he had used up his nine lives and was working on the tenth. Possibly eleventh.

 That all came to a screeching halt on the morning of April 23^rd, 2017.

 The phone call jolts me out of a sound sleep at 2:30 in the morning.  My parent’s phone number in New Brunswick pops up. This can’t be good. 

“Hello.”

My mother’s voice is quiet. “Dad fell…there’s blood all over the floor and the rug…they took him to the hospital.”

I was instantly awake. Images of two years earlier flashed through my head. I had watched, in horror, from their foyer, as dad lost his footing going upstairs, somersaulted backwards down 12 steps, landing immobile at the bottom, blood pooling under his head.

I ran to grab a phone to call 911 while, at the same time, screaming at my mother not to try and move dad. She kept urging him to ‘get up’ in that authoritative voice she often used just for him: Basil, wipe that crumb off your mouth…Basil, take bigger steps when you walk. Now it was Basil, get up, you’re bleeding all over the floor… You get the picture.

That time he had been lucky. The paramedics arrived in less than 3 minutes, strapped him to a backboard and raced to the hospital.  Amazingly, the man working on his tenth life had not even broken a bone although I think his ego was more than a little bruised. The overnight hospital stay was brief. Dad came home sporting a bandage on his head and telling numerous stories about the kind nurses and other hospital staff. Mom just rolled her eyes. He immediately set about writing a letter to the editor of the local paper praising one nurse in particular. That was typical dad behavior.

This time it is different. Mom sounds in shock as she tells me in a hushed voice that he must have fallen coming back from the bathroom and hit his head on the bedside table. She takes her hearing-aid out at night. It could have been minutes or an hour before she woke up and found her husband on the floor. Thankfully she called 911.

Mom gives me the hospital information and I hang up, assuring her I’ll be there on the next flight to New Brunswick. A call to Moncton Hospital puts me in contact with the Emergency Room doctor. He is blunt and tells me I should come as soon as possible. My father lost a lot of blood before the paramedics got to him. He is on a respirator and is paralyzed. I frantically shove clothes and essentials in a suitcase as we speak.

A quick call to Air Canada secures a seat on the mid-morning flight out of Windsor, Ontario - a two-hour drive from my home in Michigan. It is still the quickest and most direct way to get to New Brunswick, via Toronto. The flight would get me there by early afternoon. After a call to let my brother know what’s going on, I phone mom again. She tells me she is going to the hospital. I hang up, hoping she is calling a friend or taking a taxi and not driving.  Mom still drives upon occasion, but this is not the time for her to get behind a wheel. 

She’s been married to dad almost 68 years and has cared for him in her inimitable way as his mind went “Cracker Dog,” as he used to say, the term taken from a humorous story in a James Herriot book. He stubbornly refused to use his walker, prescribed specifically to avoid the violent falls. He insisted his balance was improving with the physical therapy he received at a doctor-prescribed balance clinic. So much for mom to worry about as she went about caring for her husband and household.

My parents had recently moved from their home of 48 years to a nearby apartment, Bella Casa, beautiful, modern, and senior-focused with an elevator. Without stairs to manage, we thought he would be safer. Unfortunately, we were wrong…

The chapter continues…my mother ultimately found herself alone for the first time in her life.

Thank you, if you’ve read this far. Comments welcomed. Please join me next month for another glimpse into the story, Just Call Me Irene: A Memoir.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING ALL!!

Beverley