Book Report

My first cousin once removed, one of the daughters of the cousin to whom I was closest as we were growing up, is in a Master's of Creative Writing program in Minnesota. We have been in close and continual contact since the day three or four years ago when she emailed me with some writing she had done and asked my opinion on her work and my advice about how to proceed. She started by taking a writing workshop or two and developed the routine of sharing the list of readings and workshop, and now course, requirements with me. Generally I check them out, do much or some of the reading with her, and then we talk about whatever we feel inclined to discuss. Her next course is a workshop with Mary Clearman Blew, of whom I had never heard. So I checked out the books of hers I could find in the library, which happened to be what is probably her best known and most acclaimed "All But the Waltz" and a follow up, the story of her aunt, "Balsamroot." I also found one of the books on her list of readings, Ivan Doig's "Heart Earth." I liked them all, actually hers more than his, but his book is about his mother and was prompted by and structured around letters his mother wrote to his uncle who was serving on a ship during World War II during the last six months of her life. He was only six when she died. In fact, she died on his birthday. He says "Nobody got over her."

Although I was in my forties when my father died and my brothers and sisters were all also adults, I think that is true of us, and my mother and the rest of our extended family. Certainly we have all gone on with, reconstructed, made the most, made the best, of our lives. But I'm pretty certain we will all always feel a big hole where he should be and the shape of our lives would be very different were he here.

The Seamstress

Piecing together
A new life
From the torn fabric
Of the old,

Does Mom realize, I wonder,
She was always the seamstress,
Even when Dad lived?

P. E. Ortman