next week, i'm on a panel at alt summit discussing how to write personal stories. how to make them un-boring. how to weave a personal moment into something...magic.
i would say this: don't ever write about going to the grocery.
{sigh.}
and for my next trick, i will be writing about going to the grocery. for the second. time. this. month.
this morning was hella hectic. i had three deadlines and as many girlies to get off to school, all before nine. and you know how i am with numbers. add that mess to the fifty quadruple items i needed to pick up at the grocery, each and every one prompting the little checker girl to ask "do you need a bag for this?" and then add the grocery itself.
wreck.
and then this song started playing in the store.
it was my mom and dad's song. maybe it came out around the time he got cancer, maybe it was playing when they'd head to chicago for his treatments and any hope they could find. maybe it was playing when she was begging him to eat something...anything...because, god, he was getting so weak...
i'm not sure.
wreck.
i don't mind getting misty in public. i really don't. i think life is worth a few tears.
just not at the very moment the little fish guy starts hitting on me.
even if you hate the song, you must watch this through 'til the end just to get to henry and katharine. is it just me who gets blubbery about this song? oh, probably. just go hug your loves harder today. and i really really hope you've got a true companion. xoxo. all photos from here.
i would say this: don't ever write about going to the grocery.
{sigh.}
and for my next trick, i will be writing about going to the grocery. for the second. time. this. month.
this morning was hella hectic. i had three deadlines and as many girlies to get off to school, all before nine. and you know how i am with numbers. add that mess to the fifty quadruple items i needed to pick up at the grocery, each and every one prompting the little checker girl to ask "do you need a bag for this?" and then add the grocery itself.
wreck.
and then this song started playing in the store.
it was my mom and dad's song. maybe it came out around the time he got cancer, maybe it was playing when they'd head to chicago for his treatments and any hope they could find. maybe it was playing when she was begging him to eat something...anything...because, god, he was getting so weak...
i'm not sure.
all i know is that she sat at the kitchen table the night he died and wrote his obituary herself. she ended it with ed, i will miss you. you were my true companion.
wreck.
i don't mind getting misty in public. i really don't. i think life is worth a few tears.
just not at the very moment the little fish guy starts hitting on me.
even if you hate the song, you must watch this through 'til the end just to get to henry and katharine. is it just me who gets blubbery about this song? oh, probably. just go hug your loves harder today. and i really really hope you've got a true companion. xoxo. all photos from here.
15 comments:
What a beautiful memory..
and tribute!!!
loved it all the way through..
to henry and katherine..
perfect!
thanks for sharing!!
warmest hugs..
Loui♥
well, now i'm crying at work. this is lovely. when my grandmother (who was part mother to me and did a lot of the raising-up) died, my mother and i were driving down 1-81 and trying to write the obituary.
i'm going to try and scrounge it up. as a journalist, it was like the one thing i could ever write (at that point) that could mean the most to me. there's something about our final words that makes me feel like it's got to be how the last page to a really good book reads, you know?
like your mom's.
oh, karey. tears in my eyes. i got married in december and that was our song. we had a band play a version of it and every word of it is part of my soul. your words are amazing. xo
ahhh....gah. Tears in my eyes...AGAIN. Cause of you and your beautiful way with words. I will hug them extra hard today & love that Katherine....
xo
Melis
Absolutely lovely... your ability to touch my heart is truely extrordinary.
I just lost my grandmother - to cancer - not quite a month ago, and all I could think of during that video was her and my granddad. So I'm weepy all over again. That song is a perfect description of the two of them.
you little things...thank you for your sweetness.
i'm STILL unbelievably misty still!
Loui♥ i want to start writing my name with a heart in it.
bunny? find it. show me. i love everything you write. now...og post more. i'm bored.
heather! you've got a true companion! yay, you.
melis. how can i write mushy non-words to you? i've got to figure that one out.
ginger...that was a nice thing to say. thank you.
kristy. i'm sorry about that loss. it's nice they had each other for a while, yes?
xoxo all!
if i could send you a hug over the wire today, i would. sounds like you could use one. thanks for sharing... it's a beautiful song.
prosac intake amongst your readers just reached an all time high.
ummm, as always...a brilliant post. so b. in fact, i borrowed it...hope you don't mind. you rock.
m
thankyou beautiful Karey. misty eyed? this was a blow-my nose on the pillowcase job!
reminds me of someone i loved and lost. but he's happy now.
have shared this and my thanks and admiration for your beautiful words at mine, hope this is ok? xxx Samantha
Splendid post! You are a very good blogger, you bring tears to all commentators' eyes.
Karey. I love that song. I feel for your mom, even today, years later. Paulie is my true companion, no doubt. I find myself thinking about my grandpa at the strangest of times, too...like on a crowded train or while driving or, yes, in the grocery when I see an old man with white hair and an old fashioned cap. I have followed a man that looked just like my grandpa for maybe a few steps further than necessary while getting off the train, just because I wanted to remember his very essence just one more time. They are always with us. And they prove it by popping up not just when we are ready for them, but when we're knee deep in deadlines and tilapia and life.
Kisses to you. XO!
oh karey, you slay me. dead.
i wonder if i'm the only one who, when reading your words, "just to get to henry and katherine," thought you meant King Henry VIII and Katherine Howard, and thought that a bit odd?...
i weep in public sometimes. after my brother died i frequently found myself unable to stop my tears, in public or not. i learned during that dark raw time that we'e all the walking wounded to some degree or other, and that we should all treat each other much more kindness than we do, because we never really know what pain someone is bearing in silence.
during that time that i also decided that we've got it all wrong with our stiff upper lips and stoicism, and would be much better off if we were allowed to tear our clothes, beat our breasts, and wail out loud when bearing the unbearable.
xox,
susan
My father passed away February 9 1998.
My mother joined him two years later to the day. February 9, 2000.
They were married for 54 years.
My first daughter was born 7 weeks after I kissed my mom goodbye for the last time on the day her soul danced away.
When my daughter was handed to me, fresh from my body. I kissed her and asked her if her grandmother and grandfather had kissed her and sent her to me.
All of 90 seconds old, she GRINNED.
Giving me the answer to my question.
Karey, thank you for your beautiful writing. You are authentic, vulnerable and a mix mastress of lingo.
Fantastic to meet you at the inspiration on steroids meeting ALT.
you are killing me. seriously... totally cried with the post and now I am ugly crying with the youtube video. I actually like that song now.
PS. little fish guy sounds so cute and little.
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