A Divorce Memoir That Will Touch Your Heart

I have finished the most delicious plate of reading I have had in a very long time. Maggie Smith is a poet, an award-winning poet with six books in her repertoire. Her memoir, You Could Make This Place Beautiful (New York: One Signal Publishers (ISP), an Imprint of Simon& Schuster, 2023. (Parnassus Books in Nashville chose the book as their First Edition Book of the Month for April).

It’s very difficult to be open to your own vulnerability in a memoir as I have learned in my own memoir. Yet the genre demands that you be truthful or there is no purpose. I have not been through a divorce, but my children have. And I have understood how separation tears at the heart of childhood even as the heart journeys into adult life.

I cried with Maggie Smith’s pain, absorbed her anger at her husband’s betrayal and his willingness to move 500 miles from their two children. I struggled with her blindness in the years of a “perfect” marriage”. The pages are rarely filled as one expects in a memoir, but that is the poet in Smith. There are sentences and paragraphs that absorb a page at a time, yet each page carried her story with brilliant clarity.

I believe Smith’s book will speak to the hearts of children of divorce as well as parents who have endured their own divorce pain. Both Maggie and her husband surround their children with love. It is love in whatever form life gives us, that makes us whole.

The book was a gift from my daughter, Gina, for my birthday. Gina is my husband’s daughter. She was only 13 when I entered the family. There are four other books in this First-Edition gift, but this book is one I will be forever grateful to Gina for introducing to me.

I have been fortunate to have my husband’s children in my life for the last 48 years. I want to offer Smith hope. Our children,(yes they are mine as well as their Dad’s) have snuggled in my heart. I feel their beat. Was it always easy and joyful? No, as it is for every family. But being present for each other in struggles and celebrations brings our family together. We have all emerged with a bond that we cherish.

You Could Make This Place Beautiful will make you cry, laugh, tear at your heart, and give you the courage to take whatever each day hands you and makes your place beautiful.

Aggie Jordan is the author of A Woman’s Voice Should Be Heard: My Journey From The Convent To The Battle For Women’s Equality (Iowa: Legacy Book Press, November 2022)

So You Want To Write Your Memoir?

You will find many tips in writing magazines that will list the essentials of writing a memoir: identifying your target audience immediately, gathering old photos, writing an outline of your life in five-year increments, and finding an editor. But this piece that you are reading is not about those myriad helpful hints that you will discover.

Recently I read Pulitzer Prize-winning author Maggie Smith’s memoir You Can Make This Place Beautiful. I'm struck by her words “I’m trying to get to the truth and I can’t get there except by looking at the whole.” Telling the truth is one of those essentials you won’t read much about. It takes great effort to get at the truth of your stories. To get at the truth of my life took time, years of thought and writing, and plenty of print in the trash. Writing a memoir is such hard work because the truth can be a ghost hidden in every thought.

Smith also says, “Every book begins with an unanswered question.” Questions guided the memoir’s development for her and for me. My primary unanswered question was: How did I go from being a nun to fighting for women’s equality?

It's not always pretty, but digging deep has to be done if the answer to your primary question (and what follows), is going to come together honestly. Looking at the whole takes time. One has to peek in, no, not peak, but study each chapter of one's life. Truth begins to unfold. Discovery happens if we are thorough and patient. This is important if we choose to write a memoir. The stories are of humans, like both sides of a coin: heads and tails, right decisions and wrong; caring behavior and cruelty. We must be willing to tell those stories, the nice and easy stuff with the very hard truths as we remember them. And we must bear the fallout, There will be negative reactions from family and, perhaps, friends, especially those who feel slighted or insulted.

A question Smith asks in her book got my attention. Is a memoir a ghost tour?" Plenty of ghosts harbored my sea of life. You will be haunted by the stories that appear as you write, whether your life entailed divorce, widowhood, family separation, parental neglect, a crime committed and paid for; or deeply-held troublesome passions, and dear ones who don’t talk to you anymore. Fallout for seeking, discovering, and publishing the truth has its price. Maggie Smith describes an incident where a short story now in her memoir that was earlier published in the New York Times elicited calls from her husband’s lawyer to stop the publication. Fighting this issue took time and money. Many memoirists have told of friends and family who no longer speak to them because of the stories they told.

As you write, you may be writing before you are even conscious of something that had occurred in your life. The truth will come out. And as you write your stories, their connective tissue will burst forth with answers.

You are writing your story for others to appreciate their own paths. The reader will recognize their own ghosts as well as their beautiful truths. It is your willingness to tell your truth that will speak to the emotions of your reader. Remember, it is your story and your memory. Others who were interactive in your events may have a different story. Don’t be threatened by their memories. Be confident of yours.

You are also writing for the joy of it. First is the joy of finishing your story. Writing and having a book published, either self-published or by a traditional publisher is a noble accomplishment. Satisfaction in getting your questions answered brings peace to your spirit.

A second reward is having others find meaning in their own lives because of what you have written. When Ellen O. told me “I’ve enjoyed your book” and specifically recalled that she had similar incidents, it fired my confidence. And when Nancy A. wrote an email with pages and pages of passages telling what the stories said to her, my nerves tingled with gladness. Then there will be your family who can’t wait to read it, your sister and cousins who appreciated the stories that elicited their own memories.

I had two special cousins and my sister, Maureen, who celebrated my book. Liam found a special silver pin, designed as an antique fountain pen to honor my writing. Words won’t express how touched I am by that gift. Another cousin, Colleen, brought her adult daughter to a luncheon where I was speaking. My nephew, Joe, and his wife, Georgianne, traveled 300 miles also to attend that luncheon. Then there are the numerous friends who support you by using their networks to help you market your book. My fellow writer and dear friend, Arnold, created a journal for me with the cover a replica of my book’s cover. These are the rewards that await you and empower you to be grateful that you told your story and give you hope in your path to success.

When you get an email from the publisher telling you that they would like to publish your manuscript, you will jump and shout as you cry out, “I’m going to get published.” You will still cry out that joy when you self-publish and make the book available on Amazon with your name on the cover, Your name, your book. Take the leap and write that memoir.

Some Days Are Just Like That

Some Days Are Just Like That.

I jumped in the golf cart to ride to my bridge date just a mile and a half away. Zipping around the corner to the boulevard, the sun shining above me and joy in my bones because I love bridge and my bridge mates. Zip turned into slow discharge. The battery decided to die. With about a mile walk ahead and only three minutes to start time, what were my alternatives? Leave the cart on the boulevard and walk? Security won’t be happy with that. Oh no! I only have three % of the charge on my phone left. Luckily Robert answered quickly. He agreed to pick me up and get me to bridge on time. He would handle it as he always seems to do. But how? He had a doctor’s appointment within the hour.

Lady luck was not on my side with the cards this day either. Not a royal card nor an ace seemed to find my hand the whole afternoon. Best to forget that and get on with the one task I had to do when I arrived home. We had a trip planned, so I had to get on the phone and make arrangements for Olivia at the Grand Paw. Six weeks before Memorial Day weekend—I should have no problem, but I’d better do it before they close. You guessed it. I was too late. Their week was filled—no room in the inn for Olivia. I was dumbfounded.

I indeed needed to relax with a warm, delicious cup of coffee. The machine shouted at me, “Empty the grounds!” I obeyed, but it refused to accept the basket back into place. It would not budge. What else could happen? Well, The clock struck five, and yes, it was wine time.

As I picked up the glass for that first taste of cabernet, the glass slipped out of my hand to the unforgiving tile floor. While red wine flowed all over, Olivia seized the opportunity to taste. I grabbed her by the collar to prevent her tongue from testing the glass. Acting quickly, I touted her into the laundry room and picked up the hugest towel I could find to cover the mess in the kitchen. Olivia secured behind the laundry do, and I am now ready to attack the muddle. The towel proved to be an easy fix. It absorbed the liquid and gathered the glass.

My hero arrives over this tearful bent-over body, sweeps up the towel, mops up the floor, and pours me another glass of wine—a soulful way to end this day.

If you have had a similar day, or perhaps not so similar, send me an email, and perhaps you will see your day here the next time you open this blog.

Contact the author at aggiej@aggiejordan.com