Posted by Kathleen Pooler/@kathypooler

” We don’t know who we are until we see what we can do” Martha Grimes, Writer’s Handbook

I am very happy to welcome back Linda Joy Myers in this interview to discuss the recent launch of her re-visioned memoir, Don’t Call Me Mother: A Daughter’s Journey From Abandonment to Forgiveness and the healing journey she took to  reveal the story that needed to be revisited. My reviews can be found on Amazon and Goodreads.

Welcome back, Linda Joy!

KP: I find it fascinating that the memoir you wrote seven years ago seemed to beckon you to return to it. In your updated version of your memoir, Don’t Call Me Mother, you take us deeper into your story of being abandoned by your mother and reflect on the impact that has on you and your family today. What made you decide to expand on your original memoir rather than write a separate memoir- the same title with a different subtitle?

LJM: I spent about 10 years writing this memoir, beginning two decades ago. The story of my mother and grandmother, the tangled threads, research on Ancestry.com and the way it still fascinates me is like a kind of addiction—I could be tempted to keep going over the same territory if I wrote a whole new book about them. I want to write about men and my father next, and I want to publish my WWII novel. I felt the stories in the Afterword were really important to work on and share as part of the original story, as they loop back to the themes. I continued my journey with the material in Don’t Call Me Mother without getting lost in the story. I’m trying to move forward!

KP:  Since a memoir reflects a slice of your life defined by a specific time period, it makes sense that one’s story does change over time. What are the main factors that led to your decision to go deeper into your story?

LJM: In one story, I pick up the thread of my time with Vera, the year I’m alone in a home that was abusive and scary. In 2003, I decided to face the shadowy fears that had stayed with me all my life and I met her children again for the first time since I was five, a skinny, sick, and frightened child. I hoped that by doing so I’d stop having the bad dreams that could still haunt me. Through meeting them, I learned about my own courage, and how we can find a new perspective through living—and writing beyond the original wounds. I learned about forgiveness—it’s a gift, and we don’t always plan it. My point is to show how we can continue to learn from our stories, and if we share this new knowledge, we can help others understand more deeply the power of transformation that we can manifest in our lives.

KP:  In your updated version, you take us through your painstaking process of healing, especially facing your relatives, in a way that makes the reader feel the pain of rejection. What advice would you give others who are facing painful realities as they write their memoir?

LJM: Well, first we have to find ways to bear the grief and sorrow that come when we get a shock of recognition about “the way things are,” and how different they are than we wanted them to be. In the second story in the Afterword, I find out that the Iowa extended family, whom I’d seen as a buffer and a way to have some kind of family, judged the fact that I wrote a memoir, and further, they were a bit paranoid about what I wrote—and didn’t write—about them. In a moment of insight during an intense encounter, I saw how much of an outsider I was. My grandmother never “belonged” in that family—she had a different father than her 6 brothers and sisters—he died before she was born. She moved to the big city of Chicago, and took ships to England. My mother was always hysterical and “eccentric.” And I lived in that crazy state of California, I was a therapist, I too went to England, but not on ships! And I was always poking around to find out more about the history of the family. When you grow up with people who lie all the time, the truth has premium value—at least to me. In that insightful moment when I finally see that I’m an outsider, that we always were, and that I’d left out truths in the first version of the memoir so I could preserve this family connection, I was stabbed with grief. I cried and cried as I bathed my feet for the last time in the Mississippi River, as I sat in the rain by my mother’s grave and drove by the houses where I’d spent my childhood summers. The grief, the insight, and the falling away of denial freed me from my false beliefs and the need to pretend who I was or wasn’t. Finally, I was myself and that was good enough. I thought it was an important, and vulnerable, story to share.

KP: You teach weaving the light and dark moments in and you do that very well throughout this memoir, leaving the reader with a sense of hope in healing despite the reality of the circumstances. In the end, you share a powerful message of not only forgiveness for those who have hurt you but also self-forgiveness. What role did writing this version play in achieving this forgiveness?

LJM: Even though I’ve taught writing as healing all these years since the first edition was done, I’m still amazed and moved by how powerful writing the truth is! Again, with memoir, we’re living the story and while we’re living it, we’re also trying to find ways to put language around it, finding the scenes that can capture in some small way how it is for us. I wrote several versions of these stories but it helps to have time between the event and the writing. My later versions were much better! But the story about me and my daughter I wrote right after we lived it because I didn’t want to forget one single thing that happened. When she read it she said, “Yes, that’s what happened that day.” What a blessing! It was a full circle between us, mother and daughter. We are the first in several generations to share our love freely, have sincere even if difficult talks without angry outbursts—at least most of the time—and my grand-daughter is growing up without abandonment fears. I’m happy!

KP: It seems to me that writing this version has been a gift to yourself and your family. You write in your preface, “It is a testament to my belief that, under all the hurt and anger, love is buried deep inside each person.” This insight is also a gift to your reader. When in your writing process did you realize that your story was transformational both for yourself and your reader? Did it evolve as you wrote or were you clear from the start that your message would have the potential to help others as well as yourself?

LJM: Just like the saying, “No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader,” if we feel transformed and are able to present the evidence in scenes and use language to shape feelings and perceptions, then the reader will feel it too. It’s a writing challenge then, to keep shaping and choosing and smoothing until it’s seamless. I have seen the power of writing to heal the writer and the reader so often that it’s a given in my world.

KP:  Thank you, Linda Joy, for sharing your thoughts on how re-visioning your memoir led you to a deeper level of healing.

Your mantra, “Be brave.Write your story” is captured in your memoir.

Author’s Bio:

Linda Joy Myers, Ph.D., MFA, is the President and founder of the National Association of Memoir Writers, an Instructor at Writers Digest, Co-President of the Women’s National Book Association, San Francisco branch. Linda is the author of The Power of Memoir—How to Write Your Healing Story, Becoming Whole, and Don’t Call Me Mother, which won the BAIPA Gold Medal prize. Linda’s next book is Truth or Lie: On the Cusp of Memoir and Fiction. She gives workshops through NAMW, Story Circle, and the Therapeutic Writing Institute, and helps people capture their stories through coaching and online workshops. www.namw.org.  Blog: http://memoriesandmemoirs.com; Twitter @memoirguru

Her re-visioned memoir can be ordered on Amazon:

How about you? Have you written a memoir that you need to revisit? How do you feel about reading a re-visioned memoir?

Linda Joy will give away a copy of her memoir to a random commenter.

We’d love to hear your thoughts. Please leave your comments below~

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 This week: I’m also for at Cheryl Stahle’s blog, Your Best Writing Group with a memoir vignette “Summer Day Along the Hudson River…Nothing Quite Like It” as part of her March Memoir Madness series.

 Next Week: Memoir Author Lorenzo Martinez will discuss his upcoming memoir about participating in the Operation Pedro Pan project of the 1960s.