During a recent writing exercise, I returned to my childhood and began writing about a particularly unpleasant episode with my mother: her 30th birthday party. I was ten. I remember her crying when we brought out the cake. Looking at the thirty candles that I had carefully stuck in the top of the cake and lit with my dad’s lighter, she sobbed, “How did I get so old?”Later, when dad had gone to work and my brothers had gone upstairs to bed, she asked me to make her a drink. Her favourite. Rum and coke. Making her drinks and lighting her cigarettes had become a frequent ritual between us. I didn’t enjoy it. I wanted to go to bed, but mum needed someone to listen to her confessions. And after a few drinks, they came.
“I never wanted to get married, but my parents made me. They said I’d made my bed and I had to lie in it.” I had no idea what making and lying in a bed had to do with not getting married. I was expected to lie in my bed at night and make it every morning.
“I wish your father would leave me alone. Aren’t four children enough?” I didn’t exactly know what she meant, but what I did know didn’t feel pleasant.
And “Your father doesn’t love us. I’m the one who loves you.” That one frightened me the most.
By the time I reached my adolescence, I harboured a lot of anger toward my parents. The morning they shouted, clutched and grappled with each other in the dining room, I secretly wished they’d kill one another. I hated them both.
That fight resulted in my father being sent to a psychiatric hospital and my mother and I and my brothers to my grandparents. Several months later, our mother took us for a drive and dropped us off at my father’s house without any explanation. He wasn’t even there to greet us. “Looks like you’re the mother now,” laughed my younger brothers, running off to watch cartoons on TV.
Even sixty years later, writing about that time brings up old anger and hatred. Yet both my parents are dead. How do I write honestly about them when they are no longer around to defend themselves? Do my brothers feel the same way? Those questions led me to asking myself more questions, which I hope might be helpful when it comes to writing about someone you hate or for whom you hold a lot of anger, yet who has passed on and is no longer around.
The first thing I want to stress is that it’s your right to tell your story. But the death of the person you hate or are angry with places a greater responsibility on how you tell that story. That doesn’t mean you have to write in a way that makes them appear better than they were. But you do have to write honestly and temper your writing with humility and proportion. Having gone through years of therapy, I know that it’s important to write the truth of my childhood experience as I remember it; yet I also know that my truth is not the whole truth about the person. I know now my mother and father were flawed, yet complex people. They weren’t perfect.
Time and experience as a parent myself has taught me that I’m not perfect either.
8 Questions
So I start by writing the unvarnished truth about what happened as best as I can remember it. The first draft is what is often called “the vomit draft”, the one where you get it all out on the page. You don’t need to be fair too early on. Silence or repression can silence and repress memories. But once the truth is on the page, you can begin editing by asking the following questions:
1. Why does this material need to be included?
Does telling you about my mother’s drinking habits and inappropriateness illuminate my life, the choices I made, my wounds, or development? Or am I writing to punish and humiliate her? As a general rule, I believe that anger belongs in a memoir. Revenge weakens it.
2. What did you actually witness?
Memoir writing is strengthened by words, actions, and specific scenes. “My mother dropped us off, turned the car around, and drove off without saying goodbye” carries more authority than “My mother never loved nor cared for me.” The first is observable, while the second is a subjective interpretation of my mother’s inner life, to which I never had access.
3. Can you distinguish memory from certainty?
This is a difficult question for me. My memory has always been patchy. I recognize that there are gaps that are difficult to fill. In cases like this, it’s important to use language that recognizes the limits of memory yet still allows you to tell the story:
“I remember . . .”
“At the time, I believed . . .”
“What I understood from her words was . . .”
“I cannot know what she intended . . .”
These limits do not weaken your account. Rather, your acknowledgment of them makes your narrator more trustworthy.
4. Have you made room for complexity?
My parents may have caused me harm, yet I now recognize that there were times they showed tenderness, humour, fear, loyalty, or generosity elsewhere. At my father’s funeral, two of my father’s work colleagues stepped forth to offer their condolences. They remarked that my father was the funniest man they knew. It seems my father was famous for his practical jokes. I asked these elderly men if they were sure they were at the right funeral. That was not the man I remembered.
Yet over the next few weeks and months, their stories took root in my memory. It wasn’t long before a few memories of my father’s humour were jostled into recognition, memories I had suppressed because they didn’t complement the story of my anger and fear. I understood that my father was more complex than I had given him credit for. That doesn’t mean that complexity, however, is the same as forgiveness. But it’s a more accurate representation.
5. What might they say in response?
I often test my writing by asking, “What would mum or dad say if they were reading this passage?” What facts would they dispute? What context would they add? My father never told me he loved me; yet I now know more about the repressive home he grew up in. Men of his generation lacked the emotional intelligence that those of my generation take for granted. My dad was a working-class, single father responsible for six children under the age of thirteen. His truck-driving job meant he was away from home a lot and tired when he returned. But does that mean he didn’t love us?
6. Are you taking responsibility for your own part?
Much of the harm done was done when I was a child. I’m not to blame for my parents’ behaviour. But I know that memoir becomes stronger when I examine my reactions, assumptions, silences, and later understanding. Becoming a parent myself has tempered my anger and hatred of my parents. Mum and dad lacked the parental skills that I have been fortunate to have gained. Yet, I too have not been a perfect parent. I’ve made mistakes. My learning and understanding can strengthen, not weaken my memoir.
7. Are living people affected?
This can be a challenging question. My parents are dead, but that doesn’t mean that there are others – a partner, children, siblings, or friends – who are still alive and would be impacted by what you write. While their discomfort should not control your story, you still need to consider whether identifying details are necessary and whether any claims you make could harm those who are still living.
My brothers, for example, do not share my anger and hatred toward my parents. Even though we grew up in the same household, their childhood experiences differed from mine. Their relationships with my parents were not the same as mine. One of my younger brothers idolizes my father. Years later, judging from their accounts, my father was a loving father to my step-brother and step-sister.
Share your story, but consider and respect the people impacted by your version of events.
8. Have you allowed time between writing and publishing?
What needs to be written today may not be ready to be published today. In other words, distance can turn accusation into reflection without removing your story’s emotional truth. I’ve written about my parents’ behaviour more than once over the years. In fact, the story had gone through many drafts before I eventually published it. It began as a hate-filled piece of revenge writing. In the end, the story was a much different – and better – version than that “vomit draft” I created years earlier. Time and reflection made for a more entertaining, engaging, and authentic story.
Finally, it’s not uncommon to include somewhere in your writing an acknowledgement that states, “This is the person as I experienced and remembered him or her. I acknowledge others may have known them differently. I offer this account neither as a final judgement nor as the whole picture of their life.”
At the end of the day, no matter how many questions you ask yourself, you have to ask yourself this core question: “Have I written what happened as carefully, specifically, and humanely as I can?” How you answer that question will determine the quality of your memoir and your memoir-writing experience.
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