The Power of Memoir

A faraway relative wrote me at Christmas to say she had read Letters from the Pacific and liked it, and that she had keyed particularly to things relating to family. “We have more in common than I thought,” she wrote, and it struck me forcefully that she and I – who haven’t seen each other in 30 years and who write only at Christmas – were able to connect across time and space through the telling of a very small part of my personal journey.

It also struck me that she and I, while experiencing such similar feelings, have arrived at such different places. I had written:

Day Three, at Sea: I am remembering, as I look out at an almost full tropical moon and smell the sweet night as the sky begins to pale over the Pacific, that my father was in these waters at the end of the war. It was from a ship somewhere out here that he wrote that horrified letter to his Admiral after the bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In the letter, he sounds like an outraged, disillusioned youth – almost as if he hadn’t yet seen Omaha Beach, with the bodies rolling in the surf and the shells screaming overhead. Maybe with Hiroshima, he finally had enough of killing and death. When I was growing up, he never talked about the war. Being here reminds me of this Pacific connection to him – pacific connection, after all the rage at his abuses – and it occurs to me that I would like to go through his papers once more. After he died, I could only skim them, didn’t even want to touch them. Now, here, another notch in my ability to forgive him seems to have clicked into place. I go up to watch the sunrise from the observation deck. All alone out here, with nothing but the balm of a peaceful sea.

Writing this was the first moment on that amazing journey when I was able to look back with calm, past the anger, and realize that forgiveness was what I was really searching for. It’s taken me a long time to find it, but feeling the faint tectonic shift on that peaceful dawn established me on the path. Out there on that wide ocean, I was beginning to discover the healing power of memoir.

And now I see that the power of memoir to touch the hearts of others is a testament to the commonality of human experience; that each of us, however, has a special “take” on that experience that, in the expression, can draw us closer; and, finally, that none of us is as unique as we think we are.

Photo by SSH

Photo by SSH

 

© Sandra Shaw Homer

About SSH

Philadelphia native and graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and Cornell, Shaw Homer has lived in Costa Rica for over 30 years, where she has taught languages and worked for environmental NGOs. In addition to writing for the local press, her fiction, creative nonfiction and poetry have appeared in both print and on-line literary and travel journals, as well as on her blog, writingfromtheheart.net. Her travel memoir, Letters from the Pacific, received excellent Kirkus and Publishers Weekly reviews. Her most recent book is Evelio’s Garden: Memoir of a Naturalist in Costa Rica. She and all her books can be found at www.sandrahomer.com.

One thought on “The Power of Memoir

  1. Judy says:

    I just read your post and again marvelled at how magnifcently you write. The topic was one that should speak to everyone. Congrats and love, Judy

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