On Friday, we laid
my mother to rest at the Fort Snelling National Cemetery.
She’d passed from
this world eighteen days earlier.
As with all events
that strike at our mortality, this set off a chain of thoughts that seem random
– as well as striking some people as a bit macabre or even profane. Yet for me
the chain was profound.
I am a writer as
well as a grieving son, and the two are strangely melded into a single
Human with one bicameral brain. Thoughts constantly cross-circuit,
short-circuit, and short out. This is an instance of not knowing exactly which
one happened – but producing a startling result.
The woman we laid to
rest was NOT a character anymore.
Her spirit, the
soul that animated her, had departed eighteen days before the body was buried.
What had created
the character known by many names – but chief to ME, as Mom?
I personally
believe she was animated by an eternal God to serve the purpose for which she
was created. Be that as it may, as a WRITER of characters who are often accused
of being less-than-cardboard, I was abruptly faced with the question, “What
made Mom an active, beloved, moving character in the story of her life? What
drew hundreds of people to her funeral in the cramped chapel of the obscure
digs of the Cremation Society of Minnesota?
Were they there to
look at a body? Emphatically NOT! There were there to honor, celebrate, and
grieve over a character who would no longer play any role at all in her life or
the lives of any others.
So WHAT made her a
living character – and selfishly – how can I use her death to make my own
characters come to life? All of this rumination leads me to the irrefutable
statement above. Before Frankenstein’s Monster was zapped, he was just a
man-shaped pile of stitched-together meat. If he had not been animated by a
lightning strike, the book would have ended there with, “It rotted. THE END”
The question is
then, “What made Mom a character?”
First and
foremost, anyone who knew my mom would tell you that she was FUNNY. My sister
found twenty-six pairs of wildly unusual eyeglasses when she was cleaning out
Mom’s stuff. I have a pair of Harry Potters at my elbow. She was buried with
five other pairs laying on her hands. Why was she funny? Because SHE loved to
laugh. By making herself laugh – sometimes at the expense of her dignity! –
others couldn’t help but laugh with her.
Second was that
she was passionate about a few things: her family, being part of a crazy annual
scholarship fundraiser called the Wastebasket Revue, quilting (everyone in the
family has one or more of her works of folk art, and there are probably more elsewhere),
and lastly, in the brief eulogy my artist-author-psychologist daughter posted, “May
I ever be a representation of your cool sophistication, bold style, bravery,
and strength as a mother and my grandmother.” (I guess there were more things
in the Second than just the one.)
For now, then, if
you’ll pardon the pun, which I didn’t intend: rather than flogging a dead
horse, what actually made my mom – and by extension ANY character – alive?
1) They are funny –
intentionally or accidentally.
2) They are
passionate about a few things.
3) They are sophisticated
(= worldly, experienced) in whatever world they inhabit.
4) They have a
bold style and move forward, even if they’re timid at first.
5) They are brave
which implies that the character is afraid of something.
6) They are strong
in order to overcome some OTHER force acting against them.
Also note that
humor, passion, sophistication, boldness, bravery, and strength CAN ALL FAIL.
That is the tension that should be inherent in story. Stories of those who are
both real and those who are fictional.
So, to quote the
fictional character Mia Thermopolis, “The concept is grasped. It’s just the
execution that’s a little elusive.” (PRINCESS DIARIES 2). We’ll see if I can
apply this Frankenstein Concept consistently in the future.
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