Drafting An Obituary, Novel Backstories, & Curious Queue #8

Curious Cat

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Episode Intro

I'm writing a book. It's my first nonfiction work and is three stories braided into one. It got me thinking of other stories, world famous ones, that have their own interesting backstories. I promise I'll explain.

Let's get into it.

How It Began

If you've been with me since the early days of The Curious Cat, first, thank you. In the days, weeks, weak moments, when I catch myself wondering if this podcast is worth the effort, it's you that keeps me going, listening to my guides, and creating episodes. But, second, you know about the passing of my other father, Mike, a little over a year ago. Two fathers. Both kidney failure. Double tragedies. Mike was my mother's partner of somewhere close to fifty years.

In the days after he passed, and actually come to think of it, I need to correct myself. In the hours after he passed, my mother asked me if I could please write HER obituary. Yes, hers. My niece, Ceri, was pulling together Mike's, which she was kind enough to send out for input to some of the family. Mike's obit was in good hands.

Mom, though, felt like her obituary was a loose end, needed to be drafted in the days to come to help her be at peace. The best I could tell, she had a mental checklist of items that needed to be planned for and resolved before her exit ramp loomed large.

We were both still emotionally bruised from Mike's passing, and her request, though flattering because she said I am her favorite writer, which is why she was hiring me, hurt. I hadn't processed Mike's death, and even thinking of my mother's hurt. I nodded yes and escaped to a bathroom to cry in silence, then dab my eyes.

I tasked my mother with sending me her resume, mostly to deflect my part of the work for a bit, even a day or two. She was glad and made a note.

That's how the idea for a book began. Drafting an Obituary. It was as much about my mother's life, which I was soon to realize I'd only grasped from the limited viewpoint of being her daughter. It would take a year and a half of real conversations, questions, answers, to widen my perspective into something that could grasp that my mother had been a baby once, then a kid with dreams, then a teen who'd had those dreams squashed by adults, a young woman whose worst misstep was to believe for a moment in true love ever after, and a strong, feminist woman who used her experiences to serve as a guidepost to all that she would encounter in her life as a mother, grandmother, and educator.

This process of learning who my mother is, really is and where she came from, her battles, her losses, her victories, her travels, passions, and heritage would lead the relationship between us being transformed. So her obit? It was as much about resolving ancestral wounds as it was about writing concise paragraphs that accurately encapsulated who Suzanne is.
Sources and Materials

My Substack where you can read bits and pieces of my upcoming book, as well as other (hopefully) humo

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