Experts say hearing is the last sense to go.
But it may also be the sense that continues.
Two years ago, the granddaughter of a a woman I interviewed twice for The Herald-News in the early 2000s, who, I found out after the first story ran, turned out to be a neighbor of Sarah's, messaged me on Facebook, wanting to hire me to ghostwrite her mother's memoirs.
I turned it down. I absolutely, positively did not have time for another project. Nope!
The woman persisted. Her mother had begged her to ask me and only me. I politely refused again, but I felt myself wavering, especially since she and Sarah had been close.
As a mother, I've often encouraged my children never to refuse an opportunity that moves them in the direction they wish to go. And I wish to become a better writer.
Reluctantly, I agreed.
And then the woman, who's in her mid-nineties, became seriously ill. Twice.
And it seemed as if we would not write the memoir after all.
I figured that was, perhaps, for the best. Because, in the meantime, I had received extra duties at work, which slashed the long spaces of time I needed on weekends for writing fiction, an activity that is extremely dear to me.
At the time, I also trying to finish the last novel of
Before The Blood. But the complexity of the novel meant I needed many consecutive hours to think and write, and these hours were already retreating and fading.
Also around the same time, I had some lab work come back that hinted at the reappearance of the
pheochromocytoma, spurring an internal urgency to finish the last novel before the tumor finished me.
As these events unfolded, woman recovered. I was told to repeat the labs in six months (They were normal, FYI). And so we began, this woman and I.
For most Sundays for the next year and a half, this tough-as-nails-woman with her portable oxygen and walker drove to my house to spend the afternoon - and that was after her Sunday meetings and lunch dates with friends.
She came with photos, snippets of paper, and notebooks of stories she'd tried writing over the years.
She read; she shared; she retold certain stories with additional information.
I took notes.
Some weeks we did not meet. She was out of town; I was too busy; it was a major holiday.
On off weeks, I sifted through hundreds of pages of notes: cutting, combing, arranging.
We are coming into the cliched homestretch, and I, again, feel that sense of urgency.
She is slowing down and, as she has shared with me, feels as if her "time" is drawing near. Instead of meeting in person, as she has always insisted, we've met the last few times via phone - and for shorter periods.
I'm determined she will hold that book, which is close to a hundred edited pages, before her "time."
It's arranged in novel form, topically, as opposed to chronologically.
I have one chapter left to write, along with some selections on "gratitude" she wants me to include.
The basic formatting is done. Rebekah will help with inserting photos and cover design.
I offered to hand off the manuscript to the woman for her to review. She likes my reading voice and preferred I read it to her.
I've made few corrections, and she is amazed at my accuracy and my ability to capture
her voice. I give the credit to my journalism training.
She told me yesterday she thought I would just transcribe each sessions, type it up, and that was that.
I reminded her that, no, her memoir will be a real book her loved ones can hold in their hands and read.
But a memoir, I'm realizing, is a cross between journalism and fiction.
For instance, in journalism, when I quote a source, I must quote each word as the source said it.
In fiction, I make up the quotes. In fiction, one loses the "natural" sounds of the human voice when the voice is written as we speak.
My penchant for exactness is showing up when I'm reading the memoir back to this woman. As I read, I find myself stumbling over, and verbally eliminating all together, the superfluous words, the fatty words, that muddy up the "sound" of her voice and keep it from shining over the syllables.
Yes, I am trimming her speech.
Because once her "time" arrives, all that will remain are her worlds, and I want her family to "hear" her voice whenever they read them.
You can't imagine how humbled and honored I feel to be the conduit through which that eternal voice flows.
Illustration by Kathleen Rose Van Pelt for "Bryony."
