This Is Us
Writing and Rewriting a Life Story
I wonder who will write my obituary?
I just found out my mom’s second husband died eight years ago.
It was a brief marriage — their whole relationship spanned less than two years — and an unhappy one almost from the start. Mom never liked talking about the man; she wished she could erase that entire experience from her story. From her life.
I don’t blame her. He was not a wicked man, exactly, but he was an unlucky, impatient, short-tempered, sometimes cruel, often exasperated one. Nothing he tried to do worked out; he seemed to travel under a perpetual dark cloud. And those closest to him bore the brunt of his frustration.
I was nine when they got together; my brother was four. Our new stepfather was an unsettling addition to our family. Our father was — still is — a gentle, cheerful, kind, warm and loving man. This first stepfather was pretty much the opposite of that: stern, cranky, often silent — or shouting.
He was scary.
Mom went to her grave never knowing that her second husband had died. I only found out on a random whim: I googled his slightly unusual name (it helped that for some reason I’ve remembered his middle initial after all this time) and boom, up popped an obituary, complete…
