Was she wrong to out her father?

I finally finished this book: The first half was slow for me--too many details that I wasn't gripped by. I was waiting for more about the relationship between her and her father--and the revelation of her father's bisexuality (which, in a way, corresponded with her own . . . reminding me of Alison Bechdel's brilliant graphic memoir).

I was very moved by the second half--and saw the whole book as a complicated homage to her father, as well as an important exploration of sexuality in relationship to religion.

Of course this is very complicated since she "outs" her father. He was a well-known New York Episcopal bishop who fathered 7 children and had been having sex surreptitiously with men for most of his life. Moore demonstrates what a toll this hidden life took on both her father and his family.

And yet she also points out how this hidden anguish made him in many ways more compassionate and progressive. I love that take because so often suppressed or hidden gayness is portrayed as turning someone into a homophobe. Instead, in the bishop's case--in addition to being harmful, it may have fostered a certain goodness in him. That's a very important story to tell.

Apparently, some of her siblings don't see it this way. Some are upset that she revealed this family secret (even though both their mother and father are dead). They write: "We wish that our sister Honor Moore had grappled, in her memoir of our father, Bishop Paul Moore, with the ethical dilemma of 'outing' a man whose public legacy is great, whose private life he chose to keep private, and whose personal agony often estranged him from many of us who loved him."

It makes me feel they didn't read the book. I think she does grapple with this throughout the memoir, especially toward the end. And yet, I can empathize with the fact that his adult children are very tender about it all. It's hard for those who lived through the stories you tell to recognize that everyone has a right to craft her own version of events. We own our lives and our subjectivity.

Being a writer and a memoirist, I think a lot about the ethics of "telling all." What seems to me crucial is to not tell all for the salacious sake of it, but to write well and deeply about our humanness. That is what Honor Moore has done.

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Listen to an interview with Honor Moore here.

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(An aside: Since I mentioned Alison Bechdel here, I wanted to mention that on her blog she writes about being a dyke who loves Sex & the City--the TV show, not the movie. I was also interested to see that, like me, Alison doesn't like The L Word, which I find poorly written and badly acted. Annie doesn't seem to mind that. She watches it without me. Poor Annie; most lesbians watch it in big groups, but she sits in front of her laptop with an earbud in because I can't even stand to hear it. What kind of lesbian representatives are Alison and I?! Iconcolasts, I suppose!)

Better Than Prosac

I've now been with Mom for almost two weeks, helping her get back on her feet (literally and metaphorically) after my father's death. We now have two aides--two wonderfully caring and efficient women--who come to help her out mornings and evenings, setting Mom up to feel safe and cared for when I go back home.

This morning while the caretaker was with Mom, I went on a walk with my dog Max, my ipod on shuffle. The first song immediately lifted me up from listless to flying because of the beat--and because of a specific memory. When I was teaching in Japan, I'd blast this song and dance with all the five-year-olds, the music transcending our language and cultural barriers.



Then, serendipitiously as I was walking by my old high school (I graduated in 1980) this song came on. I could almost smell pot in the air.



Next came my favorite Indigo Girls song--love that Amy's raspy voice. It reminded me of one of the eight or so times we saw them in concert. We were sitting in the front row, and when Amy played the first note of this song I almost yelled out the song's title but chickened out, doubting myself. But then they launched into the song, and I kicked myself. I'm sure they would have been so impressed with a fan who could name one of their tunes in one note that they would have invited me on stage and given me kisses.




Great way to start my day. Now Mom and I are off to a bookstore. I want to wander among books, smell them, linger on a page, a cover, here and there. Books and music. Life is good.

Giving Mom a Bath

(from www.simplytom.com)

As I helped her ease down to the stool in the shower, gingerly careful of her broken shoulder, and lathered her hair with minty shampoo and ran a soapy washcloth across her back...

I thought about all the times she bathed me. She'd sit on the toilet lid as I splashed around with with my washcloth and yellow squeaky duckie.

I thought about how when I was growing up she wrote out a dinner menu and stuck it with a magnet to the side of the fridge. Monday, Meatloaf, string beans, ice cream. Tuesday, Baked Chicken, potatoes and salad, cookies. There were always vegetables and dessert. She shopped every Sunday to buy all the ingredients needed for the week because in addition to raising three kids and a husband (!) she worked as a school nurse.

I thought about how she used to hang all the clothes that needed ironing in a closet and then once a week fold out the ironing board, heat up the iron, and make all our clothes presentable.

I thought about how she volunteered as a nurse at a camp summer after summer so my sister and I could attend a ritzy camp for free. For her, it was a summer of dispensing medications and tending to kids with stomach aches. For us, it was a summer of horseback riding, waterskiing, hiking, archery, and campfires.

I thought about how she used to sit on my bed when I was cozy in my pajamas. She'd be holding a cellophane-covered book we'd gotten from our weekly visit to the library. I'd read one page and she'd read the next, and she'd let me turn the pages.

I thought about how she once told me, "Don't ever worry about my feelings or what I think when you're writing. Write whatever you want." She was telling me to feel free to be myself as a writer and a person.

I thought about how, after 48 years of marriage, she lost her husband--my father--last month. And then a week later she fell and broke her shoulder. And I thought about how no matter what I do now to help her make it through, I will never be able to repay her.

Maybe Dad's Finding Ways to Say Hi?

Example #1: The Phone Rings
The day after my father died, my mom and I were sorting out some things in the kitchen, and I came across a piece of paper written by my father's hand. It said "Bob Newman"--a name unfamiliar to me--and a phone number. I held it up and was just about to ask my mom if this was something to keep, when the phone rang, interrupting me.

I picked it up. The person on the other end said, "Hi, is Bob Newman there?"

I looked down at the piece of paper in my hand, eyeing my father's familiar scrawl. "Bob Newman" it said in Dad's loopy blue ink. And now someone on the other end of the phone was asking for that very name, at the very moment I was about to ask my mom who Bob Newman was.

"You're not going to believe this," I said, "but I'm holding a piece of paper in my hand with the name Bob Newman on it. Who is this?"

"This is Jim," said the male voice. "I'm in Bob's poker group."

"My dad, Don Evans, was in a poker group."

"Yes, that's the same group," he said.

"You called his home."

"Don Evans? Your father? Oh, I'm so sorry. I just heard he passed away."

I asked him what number he was calling. He said the number. It turns out that my father's number was accidentally listed as Bob Newman's on the Poker Group phone sheet. I just can't get over the fact that at the very instant I was holding a piece of paper with Bob Newman's phone number written in my father's handwriting that the phone would ring, with someone asking for Bob Newman.

Example #2: Goulash
After the funeral, when Annie and I were back home, our friends Lisa and Marissa asked if they could come by and bring us dinner. A very sweet, compassionate gesture given all we'd been going through. Besides, we love to hang out with them and talk about life. They came through the door carrying a wonderful-smelling pot of something and bags of other items.

"Wow, smells great!" I said. "What's for dinner?"

"Hungarian goulash," Lisa said.

"Did you know my dad was Hungarian?"

Lisa and Marissa looked at me. "We had no idea."

And so...
...there you go. Hi Dad. I miss you.

Post-Father Life

I'm starting a new blog in the midst of total life change. I'm now in my post-father life. My father died on St. Patrick's Day. I was with him and my mom when he died at his home, in his bed, in the middle of the night. I suppose I have a kind of post-traumatic stress or shock right now. It's hard to focus, to think, to be in my skin.

My father was quite ill for a long time. But he was so obstinately in love with being alive that I never thought he'd really let go. Up until his last day he was living big.

I miss him like you wouldn't believe.

Or maybe you would.

I know most people have gone through deep loss.

Welcome to age 44, I hear the universe saying to me.

Here's a piece I wrote about my dad, with some pictures:

http://kateevans.drumtable.com/My_Father__a_Tevye_at_Heart

May Sarton once said she never truly felt free until her parents died. I feel free in the way an unanchored boat or a helium balloon let go feels free: wavering, lost, floating with no direction, no path.