Lessons of Love By Barbara Josselsohn

Lessons of Love

By Barbara Josselsohn

When I was about eight, one of the strangest, scariest, and possibly most revealing moments of my life occurred.

Now, like all novelists, I am constantly mining my memory, searching for stories that have stuck with me over the years. As a matter of fact, in the early stages of drafting a novel, my family often catches me with my elbows on the desk and my fists under my chin, staring out the window, waiting for a story from the past to emerge from deep inside my brain.

This is exactly what I was doing when that long ago memory revealed itself to me. It was such a surprise, as I hadn’t thought about that strange and scary moment in a long, long time.

The memory starts that cold afternoon when I was driving with my family to my grandparents’ apartment to take them with us to dinner. My father was driving, my sister and I were in the front seat—this was back when no one wore seatbelts (: —and my mother was in the backseat, where my grandparents would join her. My dad pulled to the curb and  my mother opened the backseat door, and then slid over to make room. My grandfather climbed in first and slid to the middle spot, and then my grandmother started to enter.

For some reason, my father thought everyone was safely inside the car, so he started to pull away—before my grandmother had gotten all the way inside.

She was a tiny woman in her mid-seventies by then, but somehow she mustered the strength to lift herself and hang onto the open door, her right leg dangling in the air—until our screams alerted my father to slam on the brake.

Thankfully, my grandmother was fine. But the real horror started a few seconds after she was safely inside the car and my dad started driving again. Suddenly my grandfather convulsed with tears. He hunched his back and gripped my grandmother’s elbow and sobbed. Evidently seeing my grandmother in that situation terrified him to no end.

What ensued was nothing short of chaos. My grandmother scolded him to stop, not wanting to believe, I think, that she’d been in real danger. My mother screamed, also frightened by what had happened. My sister started yelling at mother to stop screaming, and my father—wracked with guilt—shook violently as he mopped the heavy sweat accumulating on his forehead.

And I took it all in.

A few minutes later, everyone had calmed down and we were back on the road. But boy, did those few moments make an impression on me. It was mostly my grandfather’s reaction that was so stunning. This jovial man had been overcome with emotion at the sight of the love of his life in danger.

Several years later, my grandfather was diagnosed with bone cancer and died in the hospital. My grandmother called our house to tell us, and I was the only one home at the time. “Grandpa passed away,” she told me calmly over the phone. “I’m going back to the apartment. Tell Mom she can call me there when she gets home.”

My grandfather sobbing hysterically. My grandmother resolutely facing her loss A marriage that had lasted more than 50 years, and two responses—so various, so similar. These are the moments that shaped my own impressions and understanding of love.

That day, after contemplating the stories from my memory, I looked away from the window and  back down at my laptop, and continued drafting my book.

If you’ve seen my previous novels, you’ll know that I am close to completing a historical series about three sisters caught in the crosshairs of World War 2. The first two novels in the series – SECRETS OF THE ITALIAN ISLAND and THE LOST GIFT TO THE ITALIAN ISLAND, explore the stories of the older sisters: Annalisa, the scientist, and Giulia, the beauty. I’m now completing the third and final book in the series, which tells the story of Emilia, the “baby.”

I’m so grateful to my grandparents for teaching me so much with their words and with their action.. As I wrap up my series, I can only hope that I’ve captured their lives and their enormous capacity for love in my fictional characters – and that my words do justice to the legacy they left me. 

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Category: On Writing