Writing, Legacy, and Things Left Behind
Writing, Legacy, and Things Left Behind
Intersection and introspection are my words today. Life and its stories circle, entwine and intersect as I prepare to release a new memoir to the world. My stories and prose contain lessons learned and regrets: trust, loss, hardship, joy and legacy infused by the wisdom of life’s review. While finalizing its pages, I too actively shed possessions. Stuff that, once meaningful and part of treasured memories, now take up more physical room than I’m willing to allot. Stuff unimportant to my children or grandchildren. This feels like a perfect thing to do as I weave together my inner thoughts about life, death and legacy.
The fabric of From First Breath to Last: A Story About Love, Womanhood and Aging (Bedazzled Ink Publishing, March 2024) are writings by my mother Patty Montgomery, augmented and sometimes translated by my own story. My family is privileged Patty left volumes of beautiful, instructive writing. It was healing and satisfying for her to unleash her 300 page unpublished memoir toward the end of her 8th decade. The memoir joined other volumes of writing: stories for and about grandkids, volumes of remembrances for each of her five adult children, a published book (Mythmaking: Heal Your Path, Claim Your Future) and her dissertation. She felt driven to complete her memoir, correctly predicting that within a few years her vision would no longer allow her to do so.
What about these stories we choose to write or tell others about our lives? Most are based on truth, even if our interpretation of this truth changes over time. The meanings of our stories change too as we review them during our life, yet still form the person we are at ten, twenty and today. Perhaps even more existential is the wondering of what it matters after we die? Maybe it’s simply an interesting glimpse for others to look back on. From First Breath to Last includes details and stories of Mom’s life: growing up during the depression and World World II, a mother and wife to an alcoholic in 1950s middle class America, and two decades later searching for what else life might hold.
How do we balance old stories with our quest to move on? To invite each new generation to learn as they do, and be neither weighed down nor entitled because of family stories, losses, trauma and successes. I don’t judge others for making the decisions needed to best tell their story. I too realize after decades of life experience, how no two event experiences are identical, and our views may differ radically from another, be it friend, child, sibling, parent or distant relative. It is okay to shed the bad stuff, the stuff that may only further traumatize us. And as we do, we can choose how we learn from it. Yes, we have the power to choose what we leave behind. Whether old papers or furniture –school yearbooks or antique coffee tables – or outdated stories and myths. I’m grateful that the stories I shared in My Music Man, were not secrets: they were discussed in detail over years within family, updated into lessons and regrets, even if each family member experienced them differently. And I’m grateful the same is true for the contents of From First Breath to Last.
This privilege I’ve inherited in my mom’s writing includes this long memoir and letters, a dissertation about events sparking midlife career change in women, and her published book. Each memoirist makes decisions about what stories to share to the world. And while it’s one thing to share our own story, it’s quite another to share someone else’s. I feel grateful that both our parents were open in sharing their stories, and while I did not write a “tell all”, I feel confident Mom would find this new book authentic and important. Nearly as if we wrote it together. And yes, I’m grateful that a few years before she died, I asked her if it was okay for me to blog and write about her, and about our relationship. She answered yes without hesitation.
Each time a book of mine nears publication, a tiny voice inside me asks: am I ready for my work to be available to others? Is my heart ready? As a lifetime people pleaser, with each book I get closer and closer to caring less about what others may “think of me,” and stronger in knowing that, vulnerable or not, my heart is full. The older we get, I believe the better we understand how a single story touches each of us differently, dependent on our values, beliefs and personal life experiences. My story, or in this case my Mom’s and my story, is one or two looks at it. The most we can hope is that our work entertains, occasionally instills a lesson or learning, and that it helps us better understand the uniqueness of each of us in this life full of love, woe, joy, loss, and every emotion in between.
About From First Breath to Last:
“Readers of all ages can relate to the realistic depictions included in this book, with stories that empower and inspire.”
“Dede Montgomery honors the forested paths women wander along on their life journey starting in girlhood until they leave their bodies through the tender writings of a mother and daughter through a unique lens. ..”
AMAZON: https://www.amazon.com/First-Breath-Last-Story-Womanhood-ebook/dp/B0CT46ZL1P/
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Dede works at the intersection of workplace safety, health and well-being, and is a blogger and author of My Music Man, Beyond the Ripples, Humanity’s Grace and Then, Now and In-Between. Visit her website at https://dedemontgomery.com
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Category: On Writing
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