Appearances: Fictionalizing Life
What do you do when your sister, who never smoked, gets diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer? And on top of that, what do you do when the people you love most this world, your husband and your family, can’t stand to be in the same room together?
Appearances is a fictionalized version of things that happened in my life. The motivation I had for writing Appearances was that my sister died from lung cancer when she was only 46 years old. Her diagnosis was a shock, and it changed me forever. She never smoked, and she ate healthy foods and exercised. We were so close that I used to feel we were practically the same person. Life had its way of showing me we were not.
I accompanied my sister to all of her chemotherapy and radiation appointments, CT-scans and MRIs. When they called her name at the doctor’s office, we would both stand, as if our clothes had been sewn together with a needle and thread. When we would go in to hear the test results, we wore our sunglasses, restricting our senses, to limit the onslaught of uncertainty. We prayed that all the nausea, hair loss and fatigue had been worth it. And for a while, the test results were good. We held on to the doctor’s words, “Cautiously optimistic. Absence of progression is a victory.”
Along with going the route of traditional medicine for two and a half years, we immersed ourselves in alternative medicine: acupuncture, chi-gong, Reiki and meditation—anything to help stave off her devastating diagnosis. I spent nearly every day with her, helping her cope until the cancer went to her brain. Then my sister lost her sense of dread, and we knew it was just a matter of time.
After she died, reeling from grief and the never-ending stress caused by family friction, I had to process my feelings. One of the first things I did was immerse myself in writing. I was lucky to live in Boston, where there is an organization called GrubStreet, one of the premier writing institutes in the county. GrubStreet saved me.
For ten years I took every class: “Jumpstart Your Writing,” “Memoir I,” “Memoir II,” “Fiction I,” “Fiction II,” “Personal Essay,” Novel in Progress.” I had manuscript consultations and worked on the Book Architecture method. During this time, I was able to be with my sister even though she was no longer here. I also examined my own inner torture about my sister’s demise and the family drama.
After a while, I realized that I had a story to tell about marriage, losing a loved one and the complex dynamics that make up a family. There are lots of books out there about the devastation of losing a child and how wounding it is to lose a parent, but very little about how heartbreaking it is to lose a sibling.
Appearances isn’t just a cancer story. On the outside, Samantha, my protagonist, appears like she has it all, but those closest to her realize how strained family relationships can be. When her sister Elizabeth is diagnosed with cancer, all the petty drama is put into perspective. Samantha puts her marriage on ice and is there for her sister and her sister’s family. Dealing with a new crisis at every turn, Samantha tries everything she can, from speaking to her Rabbi to seeking guidance from a therapist and mediator in attempts to bring together the people she loves the most.
There are lighter moments in the novel also. All of the characters spend time in elegant restaurants and luxurious vacation spots when Elizabeth’s cancer goes into partial remission. My novel emphasizes the importance of family despite everything that threatens to tear it apart.
I enjoyed fictionalizing my story. It gave me freedom to make the characters do and say things that they were either afraid to or not strong enough to in real life. I was able to add more drama to scenes that were based on what really happened, and I was able to totally make up scenes that propelled the narrative forward.
I hope Appearances will inspire my readers to look at their own relationships and put things in perspective, inspiring them to heal those that need help and love while you can. Because as Nora Ephron writes, “Above all, be the heroine of your own life, not the victim.”
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Sondra Helene is a board member and writer at GrubStreet, Boston’s center for literary life. Her publications include “Jewish Magic Protected My Sister” in Lilith Magazine, “The Switch” in Voices of Caregiving: Stories of Courage, Comfort and Strength; and “Losing My Sister and the Long Road Back” on better50.com. She has studied fiction and nonfiction at GrubStreet, the Fine Arts Work Center, Gotham Writers Workshop, the Sirenland Writers Conference, and Kripalu.
She is a graduate of Ithaca College and Columbia University. A past president of the Friends of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, she has also been involved with fund-raising for the Massachusetts General Hospital and the Lung Cancer Research Foundation. Helene is a Life Member of Hadassah, a member of Combined Jewish Philanthropies, and a former overseer of the Boston Ballet. She has two grown children and lives outside of Boston with her husband.
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Samantha―the fashionable wife of a successful businessman and doting mother of one―struggles to negotiate the spheres of intimacy between her husband and her family of origin. Samantha loves her husband, Richard, and she loves her sister, Elizabeth. But the two of them can barely exist in the same room, which has caused the entire family years of emotional distress. Yet it’s not until Samantha’s sister is diagnosed at age forty-three with lung cancer that her family and her marriage are tipped into full-blown crisis.
A story of love, loss, forgiveness, learning to live with grief, and healing, Appearances will resonate with anyone who has ever experienced tension in their familial relationships―even as it serves as a poignant reminder that no amount of privilege can protect us from family conflicts, marital difficulty, or mortality.
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