Don't Call Me Mother: A Daughter's Journey from Abandonment to Forgiveness

by Linda Joy Myers

Overview

This compassionate and gripping memoir tells the story of three generations of daughters who, though determined to be different from their absent mothers, ultimately follow in their footsteps. Myers's new afterword continues the saga, allowing her to confront her family legacy and come full circle with her daughter and grandchildren.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781938314025
Publisher:	She Writes Press
Publication date:	02/01/2013
Edition description:	2nd ed.
Pages:	384
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.30(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Linda Joy Myers is founder and president of the National Association of Memoir Writers (namw.org) and co-president of the Women's National Book Association, San Francisco. A national memoir speaker and coach, she's ;the author of The Power of Memoir—How to Write Your Healing Story and the prize-winning memoir, Don't Call Me Mother. Her new workbook, The Journey of Memoir: The Three Stages of Memoir Writing, will be released January 2013 through She Writes Press. She co-teaches the program Write your Memoir in Six Months with Brooke Warner, and offers teleseminars and workshops nationally. Visit her blog on how to write a successful memoir at memoriesandmemoirs.com.

Table of Contents

Contents

Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . i

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .v

Tracks to My Heart . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1

There Be Dragons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7

Enid and Aunt Helen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

Night . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

Liebestraum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

Daddy Is Magic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43

Liberace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51

The Plains Is Our Mother . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55

The Mississippi Valley Cradle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57

Blanche and the Garden . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61

Ghosts of the Past . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69

Grandpa, the Prayer Man . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75

Spare the Rod . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79

Lemon Meringue Pie . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83

Mother's Shadow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85

Birthplace in Wapello . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93

The Music Man . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97

Finding Beauty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103

Who Do You Want More? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109

Hate Letters and Harrison . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115

Sex and Beethoven . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123

The Facts of Life and Death . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129

The Wedding Dress and Gram's Secrets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133

Looking for Lewis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137

Saved . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141

Happy Twelfth Birthday . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147

Welcome as a Snake . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151

Thirteen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159

Swan Song . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .161

Wasteland . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163

God's in His Heaven . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173

Sweet Sixteen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179

You Can Wish Upon a Star . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183

Wheat Fields on a June Evening . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189

Who Am I? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201

Alma . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207

I Have Been Waiting and Hoping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211

Endings and Beginnings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219

Leaving at Last . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227

Don't Call Me Mother . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229

Becoming a Mother . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235

Return of the Bad Dream . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241

Legacies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 245

Gram . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 249

Beside the Road . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263

Amanda . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267

Etchings of the Past . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 271

For the Grace of Dan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 279

The California Zephyr . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283

Don't Call Me Grandmother . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 285

Lost . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 291

I'm Not Your Daughter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 293

Motherless Child . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 295

Don't Tell Them You're My Daughter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 301

The Diagnosis: Manic Depression . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 307

Requiem for a Ghost Mother . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 315

Epilogue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 321

Afterword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 329

Appendix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 357

Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 359

About the Author . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 361

Editorial Reviews

Myers takes you to her most sustaining love—the prairie land of the Midwest—and concludes her story as a return to that place where forgiveness becomes 'a feather on my heart, as natural as the plains wind.'”
—Shirley Showalter, former president of Goshen College, author of the blog I Have a Story

“Don’t Call Me Mother takes us deep inside the mind of a young girl who has been spurned by that most important person in her life: her own mother. Without a guide to help her develop into a woman, Myers is forced into a vulnerable, innovative search for dignity and survival that is at the heart of every hero’s tale.”
—Jerry Waxler, M.S., founder of the Memory Writers Network, author of Four Elements for Writers and Learn to Write your Memoir

“Myers is courageous and persevering in this story about the primal pain of mother abandonment.”
—Tristine Rainer, author of Your Life as Story: Discovering the New Autobiography and director of the Center for Autobiographic Studies

“With poetically visceral prose, Linda Joy Myers tells of her relentless work to emerge from an abandoned and abused child to a forgiving and loving daughter, mother, and grandmother. This must-read memoir brings her raw dark secrets to life. I couldn't tear myself away.”
—Madeline Sharples, author of Leaving the Hall Light On

“Linda Joy Myers eloquently renders the details of her past in this transformative memoir, allowing all of us to find redemption through her honest courage. For anyone yearning for self-discovery, Don't Call Me Mother serves as a compelling guide on a journey to wholeness. I loved the book.”
—Michele Weldon, assistant professor, Northwestern Universityand author of I Closed My Eyes and Writing to Save Your Life

“The new afterword pulls back the veil and lays bare the actual healing power of memoir. Poignant, visceral, and triumphant, this new section left me shaken and stunned with its raw beauty. As a reader, I felt I was witnessing transformation.”
—Kathleen Adams LPC, Author, Journal to the Self and Scribing the Soul Director, Center for Journal Therapy and Therapeutic Writing Institute

From the Publisher