I Believe in Writing

I believe writing is therapeutic and I have proudly passed that belief and practice along to my children.

When we first moved back to Manti, we lived with my aging grandmother.  It was a blessing for both of us: she needed assistance and we needed a place to live. However, I had been away for a number of years and had missed out on some of her aging process and it was initially very difficult for me to witness the grandmother of my youth deteriorate both physically and mentally. The woman who lived next door throughout my childhood, the woman who functioned as my second mother, was slowly disappearing and being replaced by a forgetful stranger.

I struggled to know and love this new woman as I had the woman of my childhood, so I turned to writing. I wrote about the grandma of my youth who could find anything being the near opposite of this new woman who could not find anything (in fact didn't know to even look for lost items some of the time). I wrote about feeling sad when she would wait for Evan (her long deceased husband) to join her for dinner and me having to remind her over and over gain that he wouldn't be coming and why. I wrote about a woman who had a sharp sense of humor, and this new woman's efforts to retain that quick wit--often delayed, but still funny.

When she died, I was asked to represent the grandchildren as a speaker at her funeral. I happily accepted and then as I tried and tried to prepare, I regretted my answer. I couldn't center my thoughts; I didn't know what to say. My husband suggested I just read some of what I had written. So I did.

It was a hit (if I do say so myself). Several of my aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandma's friends asked for copies of what I had written. One cousin, obviously a believer in the notion of writing as a chore (or something you would only do as a school assignment), asked me why I wrote all that: I answered that I wrote to deal with my despair, I wrote as therapy, I wrote to cope, and I wrote to remember.

That night, my daughter disappeared to her room. Her kitten had just been killed and she was struggling with grief. When she emerged from her room, I asked what she had been up to. She said she had been writing about her kitten. Not realizing she had been shadowing me all day and listening to my conversations about my talk and about my grandma, I (sounding a bit like my cousin) asked why. She answered: you said writing made you feel better, that it was therapeutic, and so I decided to try it. I could barely mask my pride as I asked her if it worked. She nodded and grinned in affirmation.

Over the years, it seems that we (me, husband, children) have written a lot--I guess we have needed quite a bit of therapy. Without fail, writing has helped each one of us deal with trials, writing has made us more grateful, writing has provided inexpensive but effective therapy. I repeat: I believe--wholeheartedly--in the power of writing!