Climbing the Mountain of Lost Family Memories
I fell into a crevasse ten steps out of base camp
To me, it’s slightly serendipitous that Sally Prag chose “Family” as AOE’s writing prompt for May, as my family, past and present remains a rock I break myself against and a guide stone. Despite marrying into a large family exhibiting more love and kindness than can be measured, I still struggle with my origin story where life began with a family shattered.
I recently wrote about the discovery of my birth mother’s documents, reflecting on losing her when I was five months old and her living only twenty-four years. The black and white statements provided some colour to the life of a person I’d only barely heard of, and though it’s been a half-century, the process delivered a rainbow of emotions.
My brother, the source of the information, promised to share the recently discovered doubloons from the treasure chest of our little-known past.
Writing that personal essay took me the better part of a week; sitting down and desperately trying to convince my fingers to keep up with my mind, hoping one of them would end up making sense of the mess, before getting up and walking away, unable to transfer my emotions to the page.
