Mawhirt contributed “The Lana Turner of Brooklyn” and “The Food Bank.” He says, “I always loved to write, even though I’m a visual artist: painter, sculptor and art historian. I always was a writer and was pretty good at writing, but I never did anything like this, and that’s why it was a revelation to me. When it first started I said, ‘This will be an opportunity for me to look back and write about some of those things that happened to me, now that I’m dealing with all this life-threatening [he gestures to his throat] and facing death.’ I’d never really written about myself or things that happened in my childhood.”
An incident from one writer’s past might bring to mind something in another’s. In sharing their work in this dynamic way, the group members encourage both individual self-expression and mutual interrelationship. Poet Annie LaBarge talks about facing down her hesitations. “I’d been trying to write about really tough subjects, and this happens to a lot of writers: You almost feel suicidal because you’re writing about things that are so hard, so harsh. Abby made that nervousness and that panic about writing about difficult things…well, she sort of insists that we do. She said, ‘I don’t see that you have any choice. You don’t have any choice; you have to write that.’ All of a sudden I felt like it was ordained,” she laughs.
Mawhirt speaks to the artistic aspect of writing memoir: “Everybody gets something different out of the group. For me, it’s making something terrific, the best I can. It’s a creative endeavor. So it isn’t just confession, and it isn’t just revealing something about yourself. It’s to write something good and get feedback to make it better.”
Group members respond to each other’s work in the most supportive and positive way. They recognize that they are all in different phases of writing, and some might not want or need direct constructive criticism. Others who have practiced visual arts, or those who have performed or written before, are more interested in shaping their stories artfully.
They talk about how much they’re learning from each other and how synergistically they’ve been able to work with each other to produce the manuscript. They talk about rising above their personal notions of competency to meet the needs of the group. They talk about writing to make the deadline of the weekly meeting. The result is a tapestry of tales, some confessional, some humorous, some quite sad.
But Holding On, Letting Go is no mere exercise in sympathy for victimhood. With dignity and grace, each writer expresses what it means to be human in the context of his or her circumstances, including the most horrific one: cancer. And the reader is left with that possibility, too, to understand that life is full of both good and bad, and to embrace it all.
“I find it ironic that having cancer could end up being one of the best things that happened to me.” This comes from Phyllis Silvers, who contributed “Famous for My Matzo Balls” and “Passover and Out.” This strange sense of gratitude is a recurring sentiment – one indicating an urgency to experience life fully, and even a sudden ability to let go of whatever is inconsequential in the face of human mortality.
Silvers took advantage of Oncology Support’s various offerings – painting, fabric arts, songwriting, flower-arranging, juggling – but comments on the unique value of the memoir class: “The writing of stories of my past has made room for me to become even more available for old and new loved ones in the present. [The group] has definitely become a family. There are people I knew…but I didn’t know them. Even those that I didn’t know at all, when they started to write about how they feel about things, you can’t help but to really get to know a deep, heartfelt connection.”
This is confirmed by everyone at the table: Listening to each other’s stories and hearing about someone’s childhood or second husband or trip they went on creates a bond amongst them that they liken to being a family. “Our bonds are already quickened by the proximity of death,” says Dwyer. “And they’re quickened even further by getting to know each other.” Silvers calls it empathetically listening.
Sarah says that she’s not so interested in publication, but that she treats the memoir-writing process as a means of confession. “I care about the fact that this has had such a positive impact on my life. I have confessed to things in this group that nobody ever knew about me. It’s been so liberating to be able to say things to people, to reveal another side me that people don’t see. I was trying to figure out why lately I’ve been feeling so good. I attribute a good part of it to being so honest.”
“We come even if we’re not feeling well,” offers LaBarge, whose poem “1969: Hospital Vigil” recounts becoming a caretaker for her dying mother when she was only in her 20s.
“You’re made very vulnerable by cancer, by the threat to your life. Then you write about your childhood sexual abuse – you’re even more vulnerable. There’s something about that deep vulnerability that liberates you, that unfolds you; and you become more than you ever were before. It isn’t just about cancer,” adds Mawhirt. “It’s about our lives. You write, no matter what’s going on.”
The Oncology Support Memoir Group will hold a book launch and reading at the Benedictine Auditorium in October. Copies of Holding On, Letting Go will be available for purchase at the event or can be reserved by calling (845) 339-2071.
