This past March, as those of you following my blog already know, my partner Karyn and I took my 86-year-old mother, who is frail and suffers from dementia, on a trip from California to Florida so she could see her last surviving sibling one final time. The two sisters hadn’t seen each other in seven years and neither or them thought they’d ever see each other again, so the trip was definitely an act of kindness, a mission of mercy—one that was extremely gratifying for everyone involved.
The trip went well, my mother was a trooper, and I can’t imagine a more emotional experience than witnessing the reunion of these two old sisters, the last of their generation—or five days later, watching them say goodbye for the last time.
When I decided to take the trip, I thought I was doing it for my mother and my aunt, but now, I realize I did it for myself as well. The experience unexpectedly transformed me: my capacity for compassion grew, my love for my mother deepened, and my own perception of myself as a family member who can “show up” increased dramatically.
These are all great things—and they’re things I feel grateful for. But that’s not what I want to write about today.
What I want to write about today is not the trip, but the fact that I chose to write about it. And I didn’t simply chronicle it for my family. I decided to write it for you—my readers—and to publish it, day by day, as it was unfolding, on my blog.
I knew I was in universal territory. Most of us have elderly relatives. And if we don’t die first, we, too, will grow old. Our bodies will decline, we’ll lose our memories, our mobility, and the flexibility of our minds; we’ll become vulnerable and dependent on the mercy and kindness of others. This is the human condition. This is something we all face. So as a writer, I knew I had material that would strike a universal chord. I had a story that would move people, a story worth telling.
But I was ambivalent about blogging something so intimate. It wasn’t until I started taking notes and pictures, until the visit started unfolding before me, that I knew I wanted to share it—-at least the writer in me did. But what about the daughter and the niece? That’s where things got sticky.
Because you see, I didn’t tell my aunt and uncle or my mother that I was blogging our trip.
For you to understand my decision, I need to fill you in on some family history. Thirty years ago, when I was 27, I remembered being sexual abused by my grandfather, the father of my mother and my aunt. I told my mother, expecting sympathy, and instead sent shock waves of horror (at me, not at my grandfather) throughout my family. Three years later, Ellen Bass and I published The Courage to Heal, a healing guide for women survivors of child sexual abuse. Of its 600+ pages, a few dealt with my own sexual abuse and recovery. The Courage to Heal became a bestseller and a touchstone for millions of incest survivors. My private pain suddenly became extremely public—and I spent the next several years speaking, being on national TV, writing more books about healing, and unexpectedly becoming the public face of incest in America. I was the poster child for healing from sexual abuse.
My mother and her side of the family felt humiliated and outraged by my disclosure and this public sharing of our family’s pain. I was furious, too, and hurt by their denial. This led to a painful stand off: I wanted my family to believe and support me; they wanted me to recant. We didn’t speak for years.
It was only when I gave birth to my son, twenty-one years ago, that things started to thaw, first with my mother, and later, with the rest of her family. By the time our youngest was born 17 years ago, my mother and I were well on the road to reconciliation. I documented our journey in my book, I Thought We’d Never Speak Again.
At the core of my reconciliation with my mother is that we agreed to disagree. I reached a point where I didn’t need her validation. She reached the point where she didn’t need me to recant. And we were able to gradually forge a new relationship that wasn’t contingent on agreeing about what happened when I was a child.
As my relationship with my mother healed, other family relationships were rekindled. Now, more than 30 years after my revelations rocked my family, I have re-established positive relationships with almost all of them. These relationships stand on a new equilibrium based on contemporary, shared experiences. And part of that equilibrium relies on an unspoken, understood agreement. We do not discuss my grandfather.
I am comfortable with this arrangement; after three decades of healing, incest is just one of many threads in the tapestry of my life. It’s in the deep background now, and I have no need to talk about it. The fact that many of my relatives have never been able to accept my truth no longer stings or bothers me. I need nothing from my family except for them to be exactly who they are.
That’s the back story.
And that’s why I wasn’t sure about blogging my trip. If I were to write about this family reunion, I knew that for it to be meaningful, for it to be more than just a sweet saccharine story, I needed to include the context—the fact that I had been estranged from my aunt and uncle in the past. That back story was essential. It needed to be there, even if I only mentioned it in a single paragraph. But for me to put it there, I had to once again mention the elephant in the room—the incest.
My choice to include this part of our shared history in my account didn’t come from a place of anger, entitlement, or revenge—I am decades past those feelings. I feel nothing but fondness and compassion for my elderly relatives and I knew it would be easy for me to write about them from a place of love. Yet I was sure if I didn’t tell the whole story, my words wouldn’t ring true.
I also knew that mentioning our past history would deeply upset my aunt and uncle, and because of that, I never disparage my grandfather in front of them. I have no personal reason to do so anymore. My reason for referencing him in my account (as well as the estrangement my revelations caused) was to create a better, truer story. And that was my dilemma. And it’s what led me to write and publish the story of the reunion without telling my family. Just writing those words makes my stomach squirm. These are not easy choices. They never are.
I feel less conflicted about my decision where my mother is concerned. I have written and published about her for decades, and she and I have processed the fact that I am a writer, and the things I’ve written about her, for years. My mother has been both outraged and simultaneously proud of what I’ve published. She read every word of the book I wrote about us, I Thought We’d Never Speak Again, and when she finished reviewing it, she asked me to make a couple of (minor) changes which I did. I also gave her the opportunity to include her own perspective on our relationship, in her own words, right in the body of the book.
And just a year ago, I sat down with my mother on her flowered couch and said, “Someday, I’d like to tell the story of us.”
“Go ahead, darling,” she told me smiling, “It had a happy ending.”
Aside from this tacit permission she gave me to write about her, my relationship with my mother is primal to me. It is my core material as a memoir writer, material I can hardly ignore if I want to continue to write.
But my aunt and uncle? My relationship with them feels far more fragile and the ethical line feels more blurry.
What I’m grappling with here—-and what you will grapple with if you publish memoir—-are my conflicting responsibilities to myself as writer, to my readers, and to the people in my life.
Ironically, I’ve received more of an outpouring from readers who were moved by this reunion story than I have for anything I’ve published in the past ten years. Readers wrote back, sharing with me the stories of the old people in their lives, the trips they took—-or didn’t take-—with elderly relatives. People sent my posts to their friends and urged me to expand my story into a book. And largely, I think that was due to the fact, that it’s a story we all share and that I wrote it with love.
As a writer, this is what my lifework is about. This is what I do best. It’s who I am as a writer. I’m not a novelist or a fiction writer. I write about my life and I write from the deepest, truest place I can reach, and it’s the truth and grit and honesty of my writing that is the hallmark of my work. And consistently, over more than three decades, my words have inspired and moved people.
That’s the kind of writer I am.
And now, I’m also the kind of writer who wrote an intimate story without the permission of the people I was writing about. Will they ever read my blog? Unlikely. Will they ever know I told the story? I hope not.
But what if they do? What if they find out and read it? What if they come to me feeling angry, hurt and betrayed?
Then what I will say to my relatives is this: It’s hard to be related to a writer. I know it’s hard and I’m sorry. But being a writer is who I am; it’s how I shine out into the world. The person who wrote about you without telling you is the same person who made the trip possible, the same person who facilitated your reunion, the same person who made a wonderful slide show and shared it with the family, the same person who’s caring for my mother, and who created a picture book so you could relive and remember this final visit between these sisters. The same person—me—your daughter, your niece, your cousin—did all those things. And all of them were a genuine expression of who I am. I did them out of love. I did them out of gratitude. I did them so I’d remember what happened. And yes, I admit it, I also did them because I’m a writer and telling stories is what I do. I wanted people to read it. And that, too, is part of who I am. I hope and pray that you can stretch to love all of me-—so that I don’t lose you all over again.
Laura;
Given that most of my life now centers around the elderly (so much so that I’m feeling rather old myself), I applaud your decision to blog your journey with your mom. I read it over and over because it IS sweet – and truthful. Thank you, and well, if your secret is ever discovered there will probably be more understanding from your relatives than you think. Eventually, I would like to write my own stories and if it will bother someone(s), so what. Because I would write from love (why I can’t quite start yet.) Even the titles of your books echo that love.
Thanks Sunny, coming from you I really appreciate this. Because I know how much you honor and love the elderly.
I wrote a piece for a publication about the joys of reading. At the time I was visiting my brother’s family regularly and I had a very strong relationship with his children. I mentioned them in the piece. Reading to them had brought me back to reading. I didn’t tell them about it. Why? I think at the time I thought it was something that I wanted to do without their permission and their scrutiny. It was a very sweet piece. So, an aunt who lives here told them, and it changed our relationship. I no longer spend time with the aunt. My brother and sister-in-law now shield me from their children. It remains very painful to this day although it is now fifteen years ago. I didn’t write for a long time after that. When I started writing again, I wrote reviews of things (which I also love to do). It has only been this year, through Laura’s classes, that I’ve started writing about personal things again. I think my solution right now is, in my public writing life, in addition to writing reviews, I want to write fiction. It has been a dream of mine that I’ve always wanted to do and never thought I could do it. I’m trying to build up the muscles that I can launch off from my life and imagine.
Wendy, I’m so sorry you suffered that terrible loss when you didn’t do anything “wrong.” This is one of the things we fear when we write memoir–and there are times it happens. I’ve had some similar events in my own life and as a result I am much more skittish and less cavalier about my “right” to tell the truth (as I see it) about my life and the people in it. On the other hand, I remain a writer and too much caution just blocks my voices and silences me.
Laura, looking back, I think I felt guilty. I was very close to these children, and I think I may have sabotaged that out of guilt and hurt myself deeply in the process. I think if I had gone to my brother and sister-in-law and talked to them about it beforehand, I probably could have worked it out. But at the time I didn’t want to do that.
Wendy, I think you’re being too hard on yourself. What you did seems completely innocent to me. I wouldn’t have thought twice about it. It was a sweet loving mention of kids you loved. I think you were blindsided by their response and never could have anticipated it. Unfortunately, we sometimes learn these lessons the hard way.
That’s probably true.
Dear Laura,
I think you did the right thing. It was your courage to write The Courage to Heal that has helped so many people, and if I have learned one thing in the movement to end violence toward women and children, it is this: abuse can only thrive in secrecy.
I love the quote from the Gnostic gospel of Thomas, attributed to Jesus, about bringing forth what is inside us in order to be free, instead of bottling it all in, which can destroy us. I believe in stories, and in the fact that there are many subjective truths to any one human experience. I also believe we can navigate the telling of our truth with compassion for other characters in the play of our life, but without having to silence important parts of our experience.
I haven’t published too many things that represented a risk to my loved ones, but I remember clearly how much courage it took for me to publish a website that announces to the world that I am an astrologer and a shamanic healer. Coming from a family of intellectuals and rationalists on the one hand, and fundamentalist christians on the other, it was quite a risk. My mom told me that my uncle, a physics professor, sobbed when he read this, and said: “I can’t believe she could have fallen so low.” If only he knew how much astronomy I’ve had to learn to do this work! He should be proud, not ashamed. But I can’t change his prejudice.
At the moment I am writing fiction, and many people from my life march through my novel’s pages in highly fictionalized form. They may not recognize themselves if they read the story. Still, I am writing about mystical experiences and sex, and other things that may make some in my family and community profoundly uncomfortable. Maybe I’m a horrible person, but I do feel relief at the fact that my father is paralyzed since he had a stroke 4 years ago, and he doesn’t read anymore. If he could read my book, it might give him a heart attack, and we don’t want that.
Thanks for your vote of confidence, Magali, and also for sharing your own twist on this challenging dilemma.
Laura,
I think you did the right thing. Sharing an experience like that can be so helpful to people. If its done sensitively with people’s feelings taken into account then I can’t see what would be the issue. If you raised things that would be upsetting to your family without warning them that would be different.
In the blogs that I’ve written over the years my own personal one I haven’t shared with my family. My partner and son know that I have one but I’ve not given them any details about it. None of the rest of the family know about it. Its not hidden and if they wanted to read it then they could find it with a bit of effort. I try to be honest about things in life. I try to avoid using people’s names where I can, sometimes I slip up. At times I do write things that will be uncomfortable to read and could cause me problems but that is usually when things have been really difficult. I’d hope that if the family ever find the blog then they’ll get a better understanding of me and the journey that I’ve been on.
The other two blogs that I’ve written (and one of them is currently being written at the moment) are related to my son being ill. Both have been written on his behalf and with the family’s full knowledge. They are there to allow family and friends to follow what is going on without the need to tell everyone individually. They are also there in a way for people that happen to stumble upon them who might be facing similar circumstances to get a feel of what to expect, at least from one family’s experiences.
Laura, when I read and re-read this post from you, I always start crying when I get to this part: “Thirty years ago, when I was 27, I remembered being sexually abused by my grandfather, the father of my mother and my aunt. I told my mother, expecting sympathy, and instead sent shock waves of horror (at me, not at my grandfather) throughout my family. ” It takes Kleenex, blowing my nose, and refocusing several times to get through to the end of it. I am so sorry he did that to you. I am so happy for you that you found a way to reconnect with your Mother and your Aunt and Uncle. What an amazing woman you are. This post you have written, and all the things you have done to show love for them prove that
My copy of your “Courage To Heal” book has been a refuge and a lifeboat for me for decades. When I first bought it, I wrapped it in cotton flannel, afraid anyone would see it. Then I hid it, first under the mattress, then under other books in the bottom drawer of my nightstand. And every now and then, I would feel desperate enough to pull it out, unfold the layers of soft cotton flannel , read and write in it some more. To see the slow yet steady progress of healing over the years, I like to write in a different color of ink and/or date my notes.
I am sorry to tell you this, but I have completely ruined your book! I have written all over it, not just on the workbook pages, but also in the margins, in between the paragraphs, and sometimes even in very tiny script between the lines. One year, when my children told me they had found and read one of my journals, snooping as only beloved little children will do, I was terrified and took the book to my therapist’s office, where she kept it in one of her drawers for me, still wrapped in cotton flannel. It is now safely back in my drawer.
Like you, I was blamed and punished, not the abuser. 40 years later, I am able to talk about it with people, but only if the subject somehow comes up, and only with friends or my adult children. My youngest daughter recently told me that she confronted my Mother about the incest, and asked her Grandma how could she have been so cruel to her own daughter, to not believe me and not get me the help I needed when I was just a young teenager. My daughter says her Grandma then told her that it was all my fault, that I had chased after my cousin, that I got what I deserved. To hear that my own Mother said that about me, to my own Daughter, left me abandoned and angry and humiliated, all over again. I feel like never speaking to her again, never seeing her again. It makes me feel like a soft transparent pink moist tiny snail, who needs to retreat into my shell and burrow down into the damp black soil, away from the sharp edges of the world. This is why I am so grateful for the people who believe in me and cheer me on, like my kids and my friends.
Feeling angry and choosing to not be around people who hurt me, this is a giant step forward from wanting to kill myself. I like to think that every day I don’t want to die is a very good day indeed.
Even though I “know” I was not to blame for what was done to me, it is shame and fear of judgment and condemnation that bought my silence all these years. Your honesty and courage are amazing to me. You have helped to heal my life, and thousands of other people’s lives.
When my Grandmother died, my Mother called to tell me. She said she knew it was sad, and she understood that I couldn’t afford to go to the funeral. She explained she, my Father, my sister, my brother and his wife were all flying there, but that she didn’t have enough money to fly me there, too. She said she was sad I “couldn’t go.” So, I took bereavement leave from work and drove there with my Daughter. It was an amazing trip, and I’m glad I went.
Since then, as my aunts and uncles have died, one by one, my Mother would tell me about their deaths, but not until she had returned from the funeral. I am still not “allowed” to go there.
I will have to keep writing and keep wondering what would it take for me to feel free of all that, to forgive those people, to release myself and them. Writing is often the only way through it.
Jane, as I described in my book, I Thought We’d Never Speak Again, not every person is worth reconciling with. From your description, your mother may be a prime example of the kind of consistently toxic person that makes any person-to-person reconciliation impossible. But I still think it’s possible for you to find a place of peace in yourself, regardless of the relationship (or lack of relationship) with her that you find serves you and your healing the best.
Thank you, Laura, and I’m sorry for the above rant. Right now, I am reading another book of yours, “Healing Allies.” I love it. It is very helpful to me. “I Thought We’d Never Speak Again” is now added to my reading list. In terms of expressing in writing the ways my Mother and I have not worked things out well, it is very scary. I agree with what you said: “But I still think it’s possible for you to find a place of peace in yourself, regardless of the relationship (or lack of relationship) with her that you find serves you and your healing the best.”
Yes! This is my goal, and what I seek each day.
To all of you; to yourselves and the people who have harmed you, forgiveness is a warm and welcoming blanket. Thank you for sharing your experiences.
Dear Laura,
It is very helpful for me to read about your journey remembering the incest, the resulting estrangement, the subsequent reconciliation with your own mother, and finally, the dilemmas you still face today in the telling of your stories. If you did not give the back story, the significance of your present relationships would be entirely lost. I believe it is worth the risk that your aunt, uncle and other family members will stumble upon the Forever Elephant in the room. I honor the concern you have for hurting these dear people who are limited in their ability to understand your truth. But your truth will heal more people than those who are hurt by your courage. Your clear thinking on this is helping me unravel my own ethical dilemmas. From reading this, I realize that I, too, have given up my need for my mother to believe me when I tell her about the incest I endured. My mother has never given up her need for me to recant, and like many others in this situation, I have become the family outcast, a position which my mother has encouraged others in the family to accept. Your courage in telling your truth, and your timeless book, The Courage to Heal, have helped me get my life back. So for me, I am all for as much truth as anyone has the courage to tell. Someday real soon, I hope to be able to take my own advice. The time is coming. I can feel it in my bones.
Yours, Adrienne
Adrienne, good luck. This is such difficult territory. It takes years and decades and lots of work to resolve this challenging, painful, difficult issues.
Dear Laura,
Thank you for your words of wisdom. I do not take them lightly. It is hard to accept the unacceptable, and perhaps it is just as hard to resolve the unresolvable. For now, I will just keep writing, and see what develops!
Yours, Adrienne
Dear Laura:
I just wanted to say thanks for writing about “your backstory” to your reunion blogging in March. Sharing your honest feelings about the permission issue was really touching and eye opening for me. As a reader, I didn’t even think about that side of it. It seemed to add another wave for all of us to relate to.
That reunion just keeps on giving. It was touching for me because my mother never got to reconcile with one sister and brother (out of many siblings) whom she was very close to, before they passed away. And even though my relationship with my parents really improved, finally, thankfully, during the last 20 or so years they were still on this earth, I still have regrets about many things I did and didn’t do with them. I felt I didn’t push past enough of my own short sightedness and blocks.
So I congratulate you for what you’ve accomplished with your mom. And I’m glad that it’s been a two way street for both you and her. It’s a good ending to a great story.
Sincerely.
Linda
Thanks Linda for your kind and generous words. Glad the story inspired you. Is continuing to inspire me!
Things with my mom are good. She broke her hip less than a month after this trip to Florida. She is slowly recuperating. I’m so grateful I took her when I did. That trip would be impossible now.
Well, then I’m glad you took that trip too when you did. You listened to your instincts about it all.
Laura,
I am just now reading this– and I know that I’m posting it at a time when you are focused on your family and am not expecting a response. I just felt the need to say for my own purposes that this story about how and why to tell a story, nested within complicated family dynamics, just knocked me out with its power and its compassion, both for yourself and your family. I think that part of its power comes from how you completely honor your survivor past without demanding that your family step up and fall in line with what you know happened. How you’ve come to that place where you allow others to think whatever they need to while firmly planted in your own truth, that is such an incredible gift to them, and to yourself. I don’t know many people who are capable of “agreeing to disagree” and really mean it, especially about the important issues. Often it seems like people say these words mechanically and huff apart to their separate corners.
What also resonates with me throughout your entire post is what Luis Alberto Urrea said in his keynote address, the one you played for us at Commonweal last year. I think I have the words wrong, but what I remember he said is, “If there’s not love in your pen, there is no point in writing.” Your post feels slathered in authentic love– love for your family, love for yourself, especially love for your mother. It is just so pure and true. Maybe the ethics of writing about one’s family can be just simply explained as writing with love. You have shown us how to write with love, in more ways that just in this post. But this post, it’s all about love. Write out of love, and the people reading it will feel it. Even if they don’t technically like what you have to say or think you’ve gotten it wrong, when the last period punctuates the last word, it will end in love. Maybe it’s the writing analog to what Maya Angelou meant when she wisely said, “people will never remember what you said to them, but they will always remember how you made them feel.” Apologies because I don’t think I have that quote completely right either.
So I am just so struck in awe by all you’ve put together in this post, including the end (or near the end).
“And just a year ago, I sat down with my mother on her flowered couch and said, ‘Someday, I’d like to tell the story of us.’
‘Go ahead, darling,’ she told me smiling, ‘It had a happy ending.'”
I love the happy ending in the larger story promised by this post. I so want to read it, like I devoured every word of your Florida trip postings. I can’t wait to see it in print.
Karla, it’s actually taken me months to read your response to this blog post. Because as you know I’m grieving for my mother. But as always, I love your words, your clarity, your dad, and your insight. I’m so glad you showed up at Commonweal and I have gotten to know you.