I began writing at 63, when my children were grown. My husband had given me a word processor and I was ready, willing and able to use it. I wrote poems, short stories, memoirs and articles.
Naturally, I turned to my own life for material. At first the audience was myself because as a novice I hadn’t realized that each audience has its own demands: As I was published and began to hear from my readers, I started to consider my audience as I told a story or made a poem. When I wrote my memoir I organized it in small pieces so that my young grandchildren could read and enjoy it, along with their parents and other adults.
This memoir, IN MY MOTHER’S HOUSE, was published when I was eighty. My grandchildren, then ranging in age from 4 to 24, were among its most ardent fans.
What surprised me was it was not the content—our family history—that interested them but the fact that their beloved grandmother was writing a book while others grammies were gardening, golfing, watching TV or playing bridge.
They were less interested in me as a kid than they were in who I am now. I have been in their lives all their lives as an adult. They came to me for love and for praise. Like grandchildren everywhere, they could see themselves through my eyes as wonderful people, no matter what the teachers, parents and other kids might have said that day. Their focus stayed on this person they knew as an old lady rather than on the child who had become the mother of their parents and the grandparent of them, their siblings and their cousins.
The precious bond between a child and his grandparents can be revisited and understood in a new light when stories are written down. Take the time to do this, to see your own story as well as sharing with the people you love most, today and tomorrow..
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