Telling the Story of Us

This month I returned to my hometown of Muncie, Indiana, with my sister Amy, so we could spend time with our dad and visit with cousins and our Aunt Shirley, our mother's only sister.

Mom holding me; my older sister, Gretchen, and brother Pete.

After Mom died the day before Thanksgiving 2013, and while looking through some of her keepsakes, I came to the stark realization that any questions I might still have for Mom could no
longer be answered. I read through her report cards and noticed weeks of absences during her kindergarten year and wondered why. The only person who could answer that would be Aunt Shirley.

The night before Amy and I left for Indiana, she hosted a get-together with some of her friends (so I could put faces and voices with names) in Dayton, Ohio. While chatting about our plans, one friend suggested we look at the StoryCorps app hosted by NPR, a "global platform for listening, connecting, and sharing stories of the human experience." I downloaded the app on my phone, and Amy and I discussed on the drive to Muncie which questions we wanted to ask Aunt Shirley.

The prompts included questions from categories such as Best Questions, Family Heritage, Grandparents, Growing Up and School, Love & Relationships, Military, Parents, Serious Illness, etc. You can make up your own questions, certainly, or set up a list of five or more to get you started. Amy recorded the interview on my phone and then we uploaded it to the StoryCorps site.

Our interview with Aunt Shirley is here. It wound up being 35 minutes long, but we talked a bit more 'off mic' after we'd stopped the recording. So simple. So cool to have this and to be able to share it with our family members.

If you decide to learn more about your heritage, don't be surprised if you're amazed by your ancestors' bravery and wonder how in the world they survived at all. My grandfather had been placed in an orphanage by his mother (who married seven times) and was hopping trains and sleeping in boxcars with hobos when he was 16, looking for work in New Orleans. My grandmother's family came from Holland on a ship in 1905, no small feat either. They lived in 32 houses before finding a place to call their own here in America. And to think I still make my grown sons text me when they reach their destinations!

So, as the holidays approach, I suggest downloading the free app and getting some questions lined up for your family and friends to ask. Learn more about StoryCorps here. Don't wait until it's too late to find out about your family heritage.

ROOM: the novel, the movie

Years ago the novel ROOM by Emma Donoghue ended up on my bookshelf. I'm sure it was recommended to me by one of my WhatWomenWrite buddies, but for some reason I failed to dive in. Maybe the premise was a bit off-putting--young girl is abducted and held in a shed while repeatedly raped by her kidnapper. While held captive, she gives birth to a son. I even loaned the book to a friend who read it and loved it. Still, I passed.

What I imagined was a difficult-at-best story filled with horrible images that would haunt me forever, because it's nearly impossible to separate fact from fiction here. Twelve years ago, I was pregnant with my daughter when Elizabeth Smart was found. I remember painting my girl's nursery with a TV nearby, and then being stunned by the news of Elizabeth's miraculous recovery.

Of course, more recently we heard the news of Jaycee Dugard, who spent 18 years in captivity, giving birth twice while held against her will. And then the three women held in Cleveland, Ohio, and the daughter who survived that horrific nightmare. So while the premise of the book certainly felt real, I still put other novels before it.

And then last week, I watched the trailer of the movie ROOM and was immediately captivated by the little boy Jack who tells the story.

You see, Emma Donoghue pulled off the near-impossible feat of telling the entire story through a five-year-old's point of view. A mother of two, Emma drew from her own experiences as a mom as well as months of research on feral children, kids born to incarcerated mothers, prisoners in solitary confinement, and, of course, cases of children born to abducted women.

So ROOM turned out to be a story not of rape and solitary confinement, but rather love. The love between a mother and her son. And the ultimate sacrifice Ma's willing to make to save them both.

Emma answers my girl's question about the main character, Ma.

I read ROOM this past weekend and, as luck would have it, managed to snag my friend Elizabeth's passes to the screening of the movie in Dallas which included a Q&A with Emma, who also penned the screenplay. My daughter and I got to see the movie and then meet Emma afterward, who was gracious and lovely, as I expected she would be.

Do this. Read ROOM. Watch ROOM. And then see if both change you in ways you didn't expect.

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As a sidenote, Brie Larson, who plays Ma, and Jacob Tremblay, who plays Jack, are brilliant, brilliant, brilliant.

And the R rating I think is a bit ambitious. It's really PG-13 with a few extra swear words. Zero sex, zero nudity, some peril.

Emma Donoghue fields questions from the audience during the screening of ROOM in Dallas, October 19.