I don't know why I'm putting myself through this stress!
"Add detail" "Take out this sentence" "That sentence is trite"
I give up...for now. Here's my rewrite. I don't have the patience of a real writer to go through 101 rewrites. I think my publisher (yours truly) will let it go this time.
NOTE TO FAMILY MEMBERS WHO MIGHT READ THIS: I took some liberties...for arts sake
The Proof is in
My mother died. I held her hand while she slipped away.
She never knew I was right there with her.
My mom and I had a "complicated" relationship.
When she died, I cried... a bit. I'm not a monster!
She was a difficult woman when she was healthy, and downright insufferable when her health failed.
Sure, I cried a bit when my mom died.
But I cried the hardest when, at my self-centered best, 'I'd ask myself: "Why was she so mean to me?" That sounds like a question a toddler might ask! "Why didn't I feel the love from her?"
Over the course of several days, I spoke to many friends and relatives and asked them those same questions. I asked our old neighbor Selma for her opinion. Who better than someone who had observed our tense mother-daughter relationship since I hit puberty. "She was tough on you Janet, but you know she loved you very much." Of course, she loved you! She was always so proud of you", said my sister-in-law Sally. Easy for her to say. Sally was the daughter my mother never had. They both loved horses, and Sally was not seen as competition for my Dad's affection. I needed more than the assurances of people who were put on the spot and felt uncomfortable by my line of interrogation. I needed proof though.
Where is the proof?
I'm not a person who believes a dead loved one will send a sign back down to earth as a way of saying, "Turn that frown upside down! I'm ok. Dead..but ok. Don't worry about me." oy
My opinion of signs changed a week after she died. I was going through an old wallet of my mom's when I came upon the proof! Tucked into this worn wallet held nothing, except for one thing: the proof I'd been craving. There I saw a picture of 40 year old me receiving my degree in education. Just as my mom had done, I too returned to school later in life and became a teacher. MY mother carried this tiny picture around in her wallet for all these years? As if that wasn't enough proof that she WAS proud of me, the word "PROOF" was printed right there on the top of the photo. It was also proof that, just like mom, I'm also too cheap to get reprints made from a perfect photographer's sample.
Assignment number 2 was to rewrite a story we had already written but from a different angle.
I posted the first rewrite on the MasterClass community page for feedback."Add detail" "Take out this sentence" "That sentence is trite"
I give up...for now. Here's my rewrite. I don't have the patience of a real writer to go through 101 rewrites. I think my publisher (yours truly) will let it go this time.
NOTE TO FAMILY MEMBERS WHO MIGHT READ THIS: I took some liberties...for arts sake
The Proof is in
My mother died. I held her hand while she slipped away.
She never knew I was right there with her.
My mom and I had a "complicated" relationship.
When she died, I cried... a bit. I'm not a monster!
She was a difficult woman when she was healthy, and downright insufferable when her health failed.
Sure, I cried a bit when my mom died.
But I cried the hardest when, at my self-centered best, 'I'd ask myself: "Why was she so mean to me?" That sounds like a question a toddler might ask! "Why didn't I feel the love from her?"
Over the course of several days, I spoke to many friends and relatives and asked them those same questions. I asked our old neighbor Selma for her opinion. Who better than someone who had observed our tense mother-daughter relationship since I hit puberty. "She was tough on you Janet, but you know she loved you very much." Of course, she loved you! She was always so proud of you", said my sister-in-law Sally. Easy for her to say. Sally was the daughter my mother never had. They both loved horses, and Sally was not seen as competition for my Dad's affection. I needed more than the assurances of people who were put on the spot and felt uncomfortable by my line of interrogation. I needed proof though.
Where is the proof?
I'm not a person who believes a dead loved one will send a sign back down to earth as a way of saying, "Turn that frown upside down! I'm ok. Dead..but ok. Don't worry about me." oy
My opinion of signs changed a week after she died. I was going through an old wallet of my mom's when I came upon the proof! Tucked into this worn wallet held nothing, except for one thing: the proof I'd been craving. There I saw a picture of 40 year old me receiving my degree in education. Just as my mom had done, I too returned to school later in life and became a teacher. MY mother carried this tiny picture around in her wallet for all these years? As if that wasn't enough proof that she WAS proud of me, the word "PROOF" was printed right there on the top of the photo. It was also proof that, just like mom, I'm also too cheap to get reprints made from a perfect photographer's sample.
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