Thursday,
June 21
In Ford’s book now,
Frank is sitting at a bar browsing the pages of a free advertising rag, “The
Buyer’s Guide,” and comes across a framed box entitled “Profiles in Real Estate
Courage.” The story celebrates Frank
Frantal getting back in the saddle selling real estate, a year after his son
had been killed by a drunken snowmobiler in eastern PA.
In this strange
state I for this moment find myself, and for reasons both trivial and
circumstantial (the bar, the booze, the day, even Frank Frantal), my son Ralph
Bascombe, age twenty-nine (or for accuracy’s sake, age nine) comes seeking an
audience.[1]
It may go without
saying, but when you have a child die—as I did nineteen years ago—you carry him
with you forever and ever after.
I was with Ford here.
Though what has
happened is that my life’s become alloyed with loss. Ralph, and then Ralph being dead, long ago
embedded in all my doings and behaviors.
And not like a disease you carry, that never gets better, but more the
way being left-handed is ever your companion, or that you don’t like parsnips
and never eat them, or that once there was a girl you loved for the very first
time and you can’t help thinking of her—nonspecifically—every single day. And while this may seem profane or untrue to
say, the life it’s made has been and goes on being a much more than merely
livable life. It’s made a good life,
this loss, one I don’t at all regret.
(The Frantals could not be expected to believe this, but maybe can in
time.)
I was with the
Frantals here, furious at the presumptuous words.
[1] Ibid., pg 344.
I had these excerpts in my memoir draft, because they were in my journal from 2007. It was part of my unfolding life. I was reading psychology and neurology books, that year, looking for an explanation. I also read poems and novels. Richard Ford wrote about losing a son; it resonated. Richard Powers, The Echo Maker, resonated--a loved one gone crazy.
So why delete it? This part is in June, towards the end of the book, and while it may depict my grief to the reader, I've already done quite a bit of that by now. The reader will be looking for climax and denouement. And I didn't have one ... Frank, his dead son Ralph, the Frantals didn't lead me to one ... and the reader might feel a bit jerked around if this late in my story I include these excerpts and then don't come back to them for any resolution whatsoever.
Now years later, I might write that alloyed with loss is an excellent way to describe my life after Jack was killed. And perhaps after a full nineteen years I could echo Frank and say it's made a good life.
I had these excerpts in my memoir draft, because they were in my journal from 2007. It was part of my unfolding life. I was reading psychology and neurology books, that year, looking for an explanation. I also read poems and novels. Richard Ford wrote about losing a son; it resonated. Richard Powers, The Echo Maker, resonated--a loved one gone crazy.
So why delete it? This part is in June, towards the end of the book, and while it may depict my grief to the reader, I've already done quite a bit of that by now. The reader will be looking for climax and denouement. And I didn't have one ... Frank, his dead son Ralph, the Frantals didn't lead me to one ... and the reader might feel a bit jerked around if this late in my story I include these excerpts and then don't come back to them for any resolution whatsoever.
Now years later, I might write that alloyed with loss is an excellent way to describe my life after Jack was killed. And perhaps after a full nineteen years I could echo Frank and say it's made a good life.
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