This was so incredibly beautiful…. My own grandmother is starting to lose what she knows of the present, and relives mostly what she remembers of the past.
This essay took me on a journey I’m committing to memory, fragile as that vessel may be 🥹
This is such a thoughtful (and heart-crushing piece). It's interesting that there seems so much distance in it. The actual memory that the title is referring to - The Time My Grandmother Mistook Me For Her Husband - is embedded within the essay and its jumping off point, but further than that, it examines how the story's being told. But for all the 'distance', I don't actually feel *emotionally* distant from the piece. The line "Look, we tell our audiences. I’ve sold you this precious memory of mine as a compelling story. Will you do me a favour and remember it for me, too?" pierces you straight through, like the persona that's telling the memory is resentful in the telling even if they recognize the memory needs to be told. And the last line? "After all, we never truly know what we want to remember, until the memory becomes something that the passing of time forces us to forget." It's a perfect ending of the essay. There's such a hunger to remember everything, but we know that we can't. So we tell stories, knowing that even that will be incomplete, and that something may be lost in the retelling.
The thoughts on male vs. female caregiving were interesting too. In the part where the essay prompted me to stop and imagine what my reaction would be if the memory was written in the perspective of a granddaughter instead of a grandson, the thought that popped in my head was: "Then the caregiving would've been inevitable." It'd be an expectation, and I imagine that sharing struggles about it may be met with more disapproval or pity rather than encouragement or praise. (Though that's just my musing. Maybe the persona's social circles or the world in general is kinder than that.)
Thank you for sharing your thoughts on this, Clarice!! Your comment captures the layers the piece contains—memory keeping / the fallibility of memory / caregiving / how society places a gender on caregiving. Happy to hear too that you've engaged with the piece, like when the essay asks us to check our reactions if the first part were from the POV of a granddaughter, not a grandson. Sad reacts only in "Then the caregiving would've been inevitable." 🥺 —Steph
This was so incredibly beautiful…. My own grandmother is starting to lose what she knows of the present, and relives mostly what she remembers of the past.
This essay took me on a journey I’m committing to memory, fragile as that vessel may be 🥹
I hope your grandmother feels she is loved regardless. Sending love, Robin!! 💖 —Steph
This is such a thoughtful (and heart-crushing piece). It's interesting that there seems so much distance in it. The actual memory that the title is referring to - The Time My Grandmother Mistook Me For Her Husband - is embedded within the essay and its jumping off point, but further than that, it examines how the story's being told. But for all the 'distance', I don't actually feel *emotionally* distant from the piece. The line "Look, we tell our audiences. I’ve sold you this precious memory of mine as a compelling story. Will you do me a favour and remember it for me, too?" pierces you straight through, like the persona that's telling the memory is resentful in the telling even if they recognize the memory needs to be told. And the last line? "After all, we never truly know what we want to remember, until the memory becomes something that the passing of time forces us to forget." It's a perfect ending of the essay. There's such a hunger to remember everything, but we know that we can't. So we tell stories, knowing that even that will be incomplete, and that something may be lost in the retelling.
The thoughts on male vs. female caregiving were interesting too. In the part where the essay prompted me to stop and imagine what my reaction would be if the memory was written in the perspective of a granddaughter instead of a grandson, the thought that popped in my head was: "Then the caregiving would've been inevitable." It'd be an expectation, and I imagine that sharing struggles about it may be met with more disapproval or pity rather than encouragement or praise. (Though that's just my musing. Maybe the persona's social circles or the world in general is kinder than that.)
Anyway, lovely piece! :)
Thank you for sharing your thoughts on this, Clarice!! Your comment captures the layers the piece contains—memory keeping / the fallibility of memory / caregiving / how society places a gender on caregiving. Happy to hear too that you've engaged with the piece, like when the essay asks us to check our reactions if the first part were from the POV of a granddaughter, not a grandson. Sad reacts only in "Then the caregiving would've been inevitable." 🥺 —Steph