Dont' even know. A menagerie of heroism, loss, creativity, and inspiration, and my mom.

(I encourage you don't read my blog cause it's going to be really dumb. I thought I locked it but some of you are saying you still have it on your roll)

I just finished reading "The Prize Winner of Defiance Ohio".


I cried as it finished, out of love for the lady and my mom. And then I prayed, with tears, thanking God for my Mom. Then i wanted to tell everyone about my Mom, and felt so inadequate, and then realized that through my inadequacy she would be lost.

The other book I remember responding this way to was Lord of the Rings. I thought it was interesting that I cried after closing the book. But I felt so upset by the loss of the protagonist to the world. I think loss really affects me. Loss not to me. Loss to the world.

This post ambles somberly around this point.

(No comment on the actual literary quality or tightness of the book.) This was an incredible book only because it featured an incredible woman. The focus of the book - a mother of 10 kids who saved her family from poverty and defeat through winning contests for money (write in contests where you send a jingle or a poem or something, big in the 50's and 60's).

She never shied away from being exactly what she was, and enjoying her life because it was the life she had. She didn't pretend it was something different, and when it was bad, she acknowledged that too, and let that be a part of her life. But horror, disappointment, grief, it was all fodder to be teased, and she used it just to add depth, robustness, and humor. She had the hugest heart, and a constant sense of wit, that made her life so rich, whether or not she was poor.

I didn't really like the book that much - it took me a long time to get through it. But on finishing it, I just can't stop thinking about this woman. And really, what it does in me is make me think of my own mom. At the end of "Prizewinner", the mom dies (nothing tragic, she's an old lady by then. It's just her biography, so it wraps up when she does). But the kids find a cedar chest full of all of her contest stuff, stuff from their lives, newspaper clips, etc. and therefore, full of her (their) story.

Finding this allows them to tell the story of their mom, so that they won't let the world lose forever her strength and light. By writing it and telling it, they insure that she won't be forgotten, and that a life as worthy as hers, and as full of vitality, won't end with death. That her post life in our world can be worthy of her life.

It just made me think of my Mother. I wish so bad that i could write a book that would help everyone understand, from the inside of their heart out, how amazing she is. My mother is the most incredible woman I've ever known, and I want everyone to be able to draw from her heart, example, wisdom. I want to write her story so that others can love her to the fulness of how she should be loved, but I can't. I feel frustrated that when she dies, she will die.

This isn't meant to be sad (when I write in my blog, it is often when I'm feeling a negative feeling, so unfortunately, you who tune into this blog probably think I'm a lot sadder than I am! Just nature of the beast) But this time I wanted to record all these thoughts for myself just so that i can use them later as an analyzing agent in the work I do, or as inspiration, or as a memoir to my mom, insufficient as it may be.

But I just thought it's so interesting, how these thoughts of mine relate to the real reason we create. As i thought this; in tears from the loss of Evelyn Ryan (the books protagonist) and the inevitable loss of my Mother, not sorrow that she'll be lost to me, because I'll know her as long as I live - whether she's present or not... but when she becomes permanently lost - after those who knew and loved her have died, and now she really is gone because her influence and memory is gone. I wondered what I could do to make sure that her absolutely unique amazingness would never be lost to the world (that is, then, to say to life and to consciousness. As long as there is life and awareness and people interacting, I want them to have an opportunity to feel the love i feel for my Mom, and to be inspired by her virtue and strength) I thought, but what's a book? These are real feelings. These are the feelings behind all art. When I paint or draw without a depth of love or earnestness in sharing and communicating a message that begins from the center of the heart to communicate, and not from the outside trying to get in - a message full of humanity that can fill those who receive it, I am just making another thing.

Maybe I am frustrated and sad and feel so lost that I can't write something that will enshrine my mom's power in an undefeatable and unlosable way, but these are the feelings of matter behind all creation and communication, and maybe I can find a way to communicate them in a piece of art.

So I think that discussion is interesting - the discussion that "all real art communicates a message with the fierceness of purpose", or else what is it doing besides just existing?

I also think it's interesting that between feeling sad that someday my Mom will die and I will lose her, and the idea that someday the world will no longer have my Mom, or the idea that the world will never understand the love that they should feel for her, I am most hurt, most disappointed, and most inspired to change the idea that soemday the world will no longer have access to my Mom, and will never love her the way they should.

That, I think, is the most painful loss of a life. I think when someone is really realy sad to have lost someone, they're often almost or more upset at the idea that the world lost them. That there was so much that they could have done, or so much that they did and that no one will know of, that is now lost. That the world will keep turning without loving this person. I think that is a huge part of the sorrow when you lose someone. I felt that way when Cram left the mission (migraines, she had to go on reprieve for a bit) I remember my greatest sorrow for her leaving wasn't even the pain I knew she must have been in to have to leave, but the idea that the other missionaries won't even get to be inspired and lifted by her. And how they didnt even get to grow to love her enough to know of their loss.

I am also so sad because I wish I was colleen or Elisa or Thelma or Victor Hugo, so that i could write something worthy of my Mom. I think writing would be the truest way to keep her alive, and I am not a good enough writer. I can try, and I will, but I know it will fall short. Nothing less than brilliance would capture such a brilliant, brilliant, human soul.

:/

Even this post was too long. :) I'm going to work on being poignant. I just love her so much. Not that alone, but she is my hero.

Sound depressing? I don't feel depressed right now. i feel full of love and appreciation. I'm just writing about the part of all my thoughts that I don't have answers to, or that I haven't reached the conclusion of the thought process on, and so unfortunately anyone that's reading this is getting a discussion on the sadder thoughts, and not the happy ones. no worries! I'm okay, I just wanted to think about all of this. Think aloud... which is to say, type it out.