Writing Lessons from Mom

My mother was, without question, my biggest fan. She was always encouraging me to write - even when I didn't want to. Whenever there was a gift giving occasion and I didn't know what to give, she would say, "Write a poem," and I would roll my eyes. She saw talent in me long before I saw it in myself, and the more she encouraged, the more I shied away from writing. Now that she's gone, though, I find myself remembering the multitude of lessons she taught me and tidbits of advice on everything from writing to toilet cleaning. I hear her voice when I speak and even when I look down at my hands as I type this, I see her hands.  It's amazing how connected we all are, even when it seems that we're not.

So, as I pondered what to write today and stared down at the keyboard looking at her hands on the keys, I found myself thinking about mom and some of the lessons about writing she taught me. Here are just a few:

1. Simple sentences can be the best.  Mom was a second grade teacher for years.  Her years of teaching second grade writing left her with an admiration for the simple sentence.  In fact, most of her letters were collections of very simple sentences.  The best ones, though, were the ones that said a lot in few words, like "I love you," "I'm on you're side," "I forgive you," "Don't give up," and "Don't be afraid."
2. Writing is an expression of your thoughts.  Giving someone a little piece of the truth that's inside you really is a precious gift. I am still not a big fan of writing a poem for someone as a birthday gift, but a heartfelt letter about how much I appreciate them and why is the best gift I have ever received, and a love letter to my husband still brings a tear to his eye even after 23 years. At the end of Mom's life, she really couldn't speak much, but she would motion for us to hand her the little whiteboard we kept by her bedside and she would scribble, "I love you."  Then she would keep pointing to it over and over again as she made the point that she really, really meant it. She could not have given me a better gift.
3. Writing keeps us connected - to each other and to our past.  If you don't write, you are a little less connected to others. There was period in her later life when Mom was traveling around the country in an RV with my stepfather. Long before the days of 3G Internet access, she found ways to stay connected - a post office box service that would forward letters, an email service that worked over a payphone. She kept a journal of her travels (vacation travel as well as her RV life) that she would refer to when she wanted to remember some detail about where she had been. She made sure she was never disconnected from her family or her own memories.
4. Be careful what you write.  It may be permanent.  Mom used to have this advice about how to behave.  She'd say, "If you wouldn't want it covered on the front page of the newspaper, don't do it."  That's pretty good advice. Her advice for writing (which she didn't always follow) was, "If you don't have something nice to say, don't say anything." She knew that a hurtful letter or note would last long after the passing feelings of anger or resentment went away and she rarely wrote anything that wasn't positive and encouraging. There was a point, though, when my mom and my husband were having a pretty bad argument over a serious matter.  She wrote him a long letter saying some pretty nasty things. They worked out the argument a couple of years before she passed away; however, my husband still has that letter.  I am 100% certain that she does not want to be remembered as the angry woman  who wrote that letter. There's something about putting anger in writing that makes the sting more painful and makes it last longer.
5. Poems don't have to rhyme to be really good. As a second grade teacher, Mom was a big fan of "Roses are red, Violets are blue" poems.  Eventually, we started to make fun of those.  Mom's favorite was, "Roses are red, Violets are blue, Daffodils are yellow, and Birds of Paradise are orange and green."  I made that up when I was ten and we still added it to the bottom of letters and laughed about it when I was 40.  Most of hers ended with, "and I love you." Sometimes the ending would vary -- "and you're the light of my life," or "and I'm so glad you're in my life." They rarely rhymed, but they made me smile every time.  That's my definition of a really good poem.

 The simple lessons are the best, aren't they?

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