I’m intrigued with sayings we toss around like old magazines cluttering the living room. On the one hand, these sayings seem to have had some value. After all, many of them have been around since we-can’t-remember-when. But true? We always must test their veracity for our particular situations.
What about “It’s never too late”? True? We like to think it’s true for most endeavors in our lives, but once I had a clergy friend who forgot to show up to conduct a wedding. It’s never too late? Ask the bride!
For me it was not too late to try to bring some coherence to writing poetry, much of which I had begun decades earlier. It was a hobby, something I did most often when there was some kind of challenge in my life. Most often the poems wound up stuck in a drawer somewhere yellowing with age.
Then, like most senior adults, I began experiencing physical changes. The press of passing time presented itself in a tangible way with a metastatic breast cancer diagnosis. In the early days of my diagnosis, it definitely felt as though “It’s never too late,” was a complete myth – a vicious lie! There were things I wanted to do that I was sure I would never complete.
My doctor’s encouragement was to begin to write because I needed an active way to allow feelings to emerge. The stuck feelings were presenting themselves as never-ending depression. I came home from that appointment, not to engage in journaling as she had suggested, but to revive my poetry writing. I realized that many of my yellowing-in-the-drawer poems had been sparked by some difficulty in my life so I was interested in exploring how writing poetry might help in this most challenging of life events.
Words began flying onto the page, page after page, poem after poem. Before long I was thinking not only about my own grief associated with my diagnosis but other grief experiences in my life. I also began reflecting on the multitude of grief stories from my ministry. Not only did the writing help boost my spirits, but I also began to learn that breast cancer, even when it has metastasized, is not an immediate death sentence. Some women defy the odds and survive long past the generally assumed five years post-diagnosis. New treatment modes, in fact, have enabled some to live twenty years and more. So, if I had time, what should I do with all these new poems besides allowing them to yellow in a drawer?
I created a volume, Chocolate Cake and Other Losses and sent it off to thirteen publishers. It was accepted! Later I created Another Slice of Chocolate Cake. It, too, was published. The publishing was the icing on the cake (pun intended), but the best thing was that it helped me out of the deep hole of worry about my health. It also provided opportunities for poetry readings/workshops with the intention of helping others who might be grieving. And if you are anything like me, you like to think that you still have something to contribute, some way to help others.
I then began thinking more about what it is that I want to leave behind for my children and grandchildren. Granted, it won’t be a vast sum of money! I wanted them to know about their great-grandparents, their grandparents, about our life together—that of my husband and me. I especially wanted to share some of the cherished moments that happen between grandparents and grandchildren.
Finding pictures was something of a deterrent to starting the task because there are piles and piles of them in box after box in the attic, in no degree of order. It seemed overwhelming. Would I finish? Maybe not, but I could do what I could do! My husband got in on the act and started producing illustrations. The finished work is entitled And Then There Were Grandchildren: A Second Generation of Blessing.
I hope my newest book invites readers to think about their own great-grandparents, parents, life with their spouse, and especially those very special memories of grandchildren. So, start today! Wade through a few pictures. Recall important stories and record them. Don’t leave out the funny vignettes! Your work regarding your family will be a treasure to those left behind when you are gone!
Shirley Biggerstaff Wright is a retired United Methodist pastor with a deep love for writing poetry. “And Then There Were Grandchildren: A Second Generation of Blessing” is her reflection on the joys of grandparenting. She previously lived in Winterville.
