Memories.....

I've always been a reader. I can remember "losing" myself in a book as early as fourth or fifth grade. My parents encouraged reading (mom reading books to me before I could choose my own). And I was somewhat of an introvert with a handful of really close friends, but with much alone time to fill. And so, often, I would fill hours with a good book.

When I was in junior high school and old enough to "babysit" for my younger sister when mom and dad went out I would haunt the "adult" books on the living room book shelves. Peyton Place was a "racy" favorite and I read certain pages over and over again....quickly putting the book back on the shelf when my parents' car turned in the driveway. Even in college, in spite of hours spent cracking the books assigned for a class, I would read for pleasure. As a mother I made time for reading, while the little ones napped, or while dinner was in the oven, or before falling asleep at night.

When we spent two years living on our sailboat I kept a log and counted 267 books as part of the adventure. I would find them at book-exchange shelves at laundromats and marinas along the way, or trade with other sailors we met at anchor.

Now I still use books to fill some of my time, maybe even more of my time during this wierd/sad 2020. A recent library book by a favorite author, Anna Quindlen, came home with me last week. One True Thing was a good read and, sadly, it was very timely for our little family. We are saying goodbye to a loved one and this book details the story of a young career woman who comes home to care for her mother dying of cancer. There were many sentences and paragraphs that hit home and brought a lump to my throat.

But it was one passage, toward the end of the novel, that made me stop to re-read it several times. This is after the mother's death, and the narrator is remembering her. She says "But the truth is I didn't really think she had it in her. And being so wrong about her makes me wonder now how often I am utterly wrong about myself. And how wrong she might have been about her mother, how wrong he (the narrator's father) might have been about his father, how much of family life is a vast web of misunderstandings, a tinted and touched-up family portrait, an accurate representation of fact that leaves out only the essential truth."

This one passage made me think about my own family growing up and my memories. I think about how different my memories are from the ones held by my younger sister. This probably shouldn't be any surprise. An eight year age difference means that I did have a "different" family than she did. I do remember things differently....and maybe a little more clearly. A sixteen year old would have more concrete memories of a particular event than an eight year old.

It doesn't mean that either of us is really "wrong".....or does it? Family life as a vast web of misunderstandings.....it makes me wonder what our two children, a boy and a girl five years apart will remember about me. 

I hope their "tinted and touched-up family portrait", if not accurate, will at least be mostly one they want to look at more than once.