Betty Shafer asked me to read an essay about losing her adult son. It had been a year since she began the essay following an emotional author reading I gave at the Colorado Mountain Writer’s Conference she attended in June 2001.

Wishing to include memories about her son John in a book she was making for her many children and grandchildren, she pieced words together that she initially wrote on scraps of paper. Although she had come a long way on the essay since its beginnings, she wasn’t sure that what she’d written was a finished product.

Here is the draft that Betty sent me. As you read, notice where you feel confused and where you want to know more, where there are gaps that trip you up and where you ride smoothly along with Betty’s details and images:

John

Until I heard a poem written by a mother who lost her grown son, I couldn’t write about John. While the poet spoke of happy times and a great loss, I cried for hours and searched my thoughts for something to say. Where are the happy memories?

John died on my birthday almost three years ago. The coroner said it was an accident, that he took street and prescription drugs until they stopped his heart. I’m not sure.

Then I recalled the time I visited him in San Francisco and he actually showed up as planned. We walked around downtown looking for a coffee shop. Suddenly he stopped and sat down at a table at an outdoor cafe, across from a young man in a wheelchair. “How are you doing?” he asked him. His tone was intimate and concerned, as if he knew him well. The young man raised his head from his chest and smiled with half his face. He replied, “Okay,” in a slurred and halting voice.

“What’s your name?” John asked. I saw that he didn’t know him at all. I listened closely.

“Mark.”

“That’s my brother’s name. What do you do all day?” I could only stand in wonder as Mark’s face brightened, his halting words began to flow more easily and his eyes showed interest. After a while, John rose, said goodbye and have a great day, and shook Mark’s hand. We continued down the street. It moved me to see this compassionate side of my son and I complimented his caring.

“No one ever bothers to talk to someone like Mark.”

“But you did, and I’m sure it made his day.”

John often said that he would die young, that he was not meant to be on this planet. In pain he spoke of sounds and images that he knew could not be real, but they must be, because there they were. There were people on the television telling him to do things that scared him. Cutting all the wires in the house didn’t make them go away. Strange people on the street seemed threatening and often panicked him into long phone calls to his brothers and me. He would be in a phone booth somewhere, afraid to hang up and leave the booth.

There were late night calls from emergency rooms along the west coast, saying he was wouldn’t speak or move, and could only write my phone number on a piece of paper. Who was I, and what was his history, his problem, they wanted to know. Once when he stayed with me for a few days he came home from a walk carrying three white bottles with rusted lids and handed them to me

“I found these in the lot on the corner and I know you collect old bottles, Mom.” I was touched and they are treasured as one of two things he ever gave me. The other was a piano key broach made by a friend of his. But we had almost no contact in the last of his 46 years. He hated me. I had abused him and deserted him as a child, he said. The phone calls of old resumed in frightening lengths and abusive language. Was it the drugs, the alcohol, or the schizophrenia talking, I wondered? No matter, the phone calls became intolerable, and I stopped answering them. The last time I saw him was at a wedding of his old friend. He introduced me to his roommate Warren; then we politely ignored each other. Shouldn’t I have tried one last time to reach out? The thought haunts me still.

John was a beautiful baby, a middle child with three brothers and three sisters. He was blond and brown eyed, and his good looks stayed with him into adulthood. He showed wanderlust from the time he could crawl. If confined to a playpen, he would tantrum until he gained freedom. At five he still wasn’t toilet trained. As a young child he would dash recklessly into the street, or travel several blocks away before he was missed. Often a neighbor or policeman would return him home even as I was searching frantically for him

School was a problem though he was very intelligent and able to understand the work. He just didn’t see the sense in doing it. And he couldn’t seem to connect discipline and punishment to his behavior. As he hit his teens, he would often stare into space for a long time: he couldn’t get along with schoolmates or siblings, fought with his teachers. More punishment didn’t help, and it was too desperately severe.

He began using drugs. When he started hearing voices and harboring delusions, a psychiatrist said he was having flashbacks from LSD. There was trouble with the youth authorities, and finally at 16, a stint in a county boy’s camp. This is where he said I deserted him. As a young adult, he couldn’t hold a job. Sometimes he could last months, though, as a cook or chef. Then there would be a fight with the boss or coworker or he just wouldn’t show up some day. He became estranged from the family, mostly living on the street and making contact occasionally by telephone. Rarely he would show up at someone’s doorstep, thin, dirty and disheveled. He would stay a few hours or a few days until the voices said something that made him move on.

There were sessions in the hospital, where at last we learned the source of his problems; paranoid schizophrenia, self-medicated with drugs and alcohol. Mandatory psychiatric drugs made him better but the side effects caused him to abandon them as soon as he was released.

John was a great chef. In his good times, he would make a mouthwatering omelet for everybody, filling it with cheese and vegetables and cooking it to fluffy perfection. He taught me how to select the best mushrooms at the market and I follow his advice today.

At last, he met Warren and his partner Jerry and left the street life. John cooked and kept house for them, also nursing Jerry who was dying of AIDS. He stayed on after Jerry’s death and though tumultuous, his life “inside” for the final 13 years was fairly stable. He volunteered for the care of children with AIDS, took part time jobs, and visited with friends. Whenever there was a charitable function, John was the first to volunteer to help.

It was at his memorial service that his brother remembered John had starting him on his house-painting career. He spent hours on the phone making random calls to numbers in the phone book, soliciting business.

There were times when his direct and “I don’t give a damn” attitude brought us a laugh. Another brother tells of a time when John was living on the street and called him to bring a warm jacket, the weather had turned cold. His brother delivered the jacket and a blanket, then took him to a local short order restaurant to eat. The owner was an outspoken advocate of Prisoners of War and Missing in Action groups. His shop was decorated with American flags, patriotic signs, and posters depicting MIAs and POWs.

“How are you doing, are you having a good day?” the owner greeted John as he picked up his food.

His brother held his breath, then gave a sigh of relief, when John replied, after a short pause, “I’m having a good day, thanks.”

“Prisoners of war never have a good day,” the owner said.

John looked at him, then replied, “I don’t give a shit.” He picked up his food and walked to a table, leaving the owner speechless, his mouth open.

Many spiritual people believe that there is a purpose to everyone’s life, maybe one that only God knows. Beneath the pain, there was in John a good heart. Perhaps the challenge of finding it was our lesson and his purpose.

Even though I had questions and felt jarred sometimes by shifts in the emotional focus of her memories, I was very moved by Betty’s draft. As a reader, however, I wanted more in the essay that would keep me relating not only to Betty’s memories of her son, but also to her difficulty in writing about them. Betty asks herself where her good memories are and I expect a search.  Therefore, rather than jump to the “good” memory about John’s interaction with Mark right after the first two short paragraphs that announce her loss, I suggested she try putting the way John spent the last 13 years of his life earlier in the essay.  John’s life with Warren had helped Betty feel somewhat better (“At last,” she writes, when she introduces this memory).  I thought that setting that down first might help her deal with her emotions as she wrote.  Next, she could bring up the difficult times that had preceded John’s living with Warren, starting from childhood.  Although working on developing good memories is her motive and is important, Betty would have to let the process of writing about John’s life, bad memories and all, help her find her way to the good memories.  It seemed to me that she hadn’t written about John not only because she couldn’t find good memories but also because the bad ones were painful.  Writing, however, can take us on a journey from what we fear or dislike to insight that allows us to feel more resolved, more whole, alive and accepting. If we explore what is keeping our feelings damned up, we often find a river, or at least a tributary, of images and details that can help us travel to insight.  In addition to the emotional occasion of the piece, I was intrigued about John’s advice on how to choose good mushrooms and hoped the essay would not end without letting me know what he had advised. It would also be good for the essay (and Betty) if Betty revealed how she chooses the good ones to this day and remembers John.

Another area that left me a bit confused was why John’s response to the restaurant owner is a good memory treasured by the family. Perhaps the family releases sadness by finding it amusing that John came out and said, “I don’t give a shit,” to the restaurant owner. I have a hunch that John responded to the man’s attitude out of his own pain. John was there to enjoy his brother and get away from being “imprisoned” by mental illness. Saying “I don’t give a shit” might have meant something like, “If you only knew the prison I am in. You asked if I am having a good day and I am having a good day and was able to say yes.  Don’t remind me of the times I can’t say that.” I was hoping that Betty could voice something of what she thought this exchange meant to John because it would deepen the meaning for her readers and show more of her son’s delight in his family despite his difficulties. Often the stories told in families take on a kind of shorthand quality among family members but by telling the story more fully in writing so readers can understand, the writer finds out more, too.

I also suggested Betty work on a transition from discussing the difficult parts of John’s history to finding her purpose in writing about him. Perhaps she could voice a deep feeling of not wanting to desert him now that he is gone, as he believed she had when he was a youth.

Betty wrote a few more drafts and then sent this one:

John

Until I heard a poem written by a mother who lost her grown son, I couldn’t write about John. While the poet spoke of happy times and a great loss, I cried and searched my thoughts for something I could say about my son. Where were the happy memories?

John was my son, and he died on my birthday almost three years ago. The coroner said it was an accident, that he took street and prescription drugs until they stopped his heart. I’m not sure.

I had been relieved that John’s life took a turn for the better when he met Warren and his partner Jerry and left the street life. He cooked and kept house for them and cared for Jerry, who was dying of AIDS. He stayed on after Jerry’s death and though outwardly tumultuous, his life “inside” for the final 13 years was stable. He volunteered for the care of children with AIDS, took part time jobs, and visited with friends. Whenever there was a charitable function, John was the first to volunteer his help. If there were arguments with Warren, if he was thrown out from time to time, they would be resolved and he would be let back into the safety of a home.

John often said that he would die young, that he was not meant to be on this planet. In pain, he spoke of sounds and images that he knew could not be real, but they must be, because there they were. There were voices on the television telling him to do things that scared him. Cutting all the wires in the house didn’t make them go away. People on the street seemed threatening and often panicked him into long phone calls to me and his brothers. He would be in a phone booth somewhere, afraid to hang up and leave the booth.

There were late night calls from emergency room doctors all along the west coast, saying he wouldn’t speak or move, and could only write my phone number on a piece of paper. They wanted to know who I was and what his history was and his problem.

It was during one of these sessions in a hospital when at last we all learned the source of his problems: paranoid schizophrenia, self-medicated with drugs and alcohol. Mandatory psychiatric drugs made him better but the side effects caused him to abandon them as soon as he was released.

He couldn’t hold a job for long. Sometimes he could last months, though, as a cook or chef. Then there would be a fight with the boss or coworker or he just wouldn’t show up some day. He became estranged from the family, mostly living on the street and making contact occasionally by telephone. Rarely he would show up at someone’s doorstep, thin, dirty and disheveled. He would stay a few hours or a few days until the voices said something that made him move on.

John and I had almost no contact in the last of his 46 years. He hated me. I had abused him and deserted him as a child he said. The phone calls of old had resumed in frightening lengths and abusive language. Was it the drugs, the alcohol, or the schizophrenia talking, I wondered? No matter, the phone calls became intolerable, and I stopped answering them. The last time I saw him was at a wedding of his old friend. He introduced me to his roommate Warren, and then we politely ignored each other. Shouldn’t I have tried one last time to reach out? The thought haunts me.

John was a beautiful baby, a middle child with three brothers and three sisters. He was blond and brown eyed, and his good looks stayed with him into adulthood. He showed wanderlust from the time he could crawl. If confined to a playpen, he would tantrum until he gained freedom. As a young child he would dash recklessly into the street or travel several blocks away before he was missed. Often a neighbor or policeman would return him home even as I was searching frantically for him.

School was a problem though he was very intelligent and able to understand the work. He just didn’t see the sense in doing it. And he couldn’t seem to connect discipline and punishment to his behavior. As he hit his teens, he would often stare into space for a long time: he couldn’t get along with schoolmates or siblings, fought with his teachers. More punishment didn’t help, and it was too desperately severe.

He began using drugs. When he started hearing voices and harboring delusions, a psychiatrist said he was having flashbacks from LSD. There was trouble with the youth authorities, and finally at 16, a stint in a county boy’s camp. This is where he said I deserted him.

Remembering the poet’s touching tribute to her son, I’m searching for some meaning, some positive thing to say, some bit of joy in John’s life. As a mother I can’t dismiss his life as only tragic, only tortured, only a sad event. My mind wanders through his birth, his baby years, his childhood, and every encounter we had after he left home. I desperately need some flowers in this weed-choked garden.

Then I recall the time I had driven from Los Angeles to visit him in San Francisco and he actually showed up as planned. We walked around downtown looking for a coffee shop.

Suddenly he stopped and sat down at a table at an outdoor cafe, across from a young man in a wheelchair.

“How are you doing?” he asked him. His tone was intimate and concerned, as if he knew him well. The young man raised his head from his chest and smiled with half his face. He replied, “Okay,” in a slurred and halting voice.

“What’s your name?” John asked. I saw that he didn’t know him at all. I listened closely.

“Mark.”

“That’s my brother’s name. What do you do all day?”

I could only stand in wonder as Mark’s face brightened, his halting words began to flow more easily and his eyes showed interest. Their voices were soft, their heads close together, and I could no longer hear what they were saying. After a while, John stood, said goodbye and have a great day, and shook Mark’s hand. We continued walking down the street. It moved me to see this compassionate side of my son and I complimented his caring.

“No one ever bothers to talk to someone like Mark,” he replied.

“But you did, and I’m sure it made his day.”

Once when he stayed with me for a few days he came home from a walk carrying three white Avon bottles with rusted lids and handed them to me.

“I found these in the lot on the corner and I know you collect old bottles, Mom.” I was touched and they are treasured as one of two things he ever gave me. The other was a piano key broach made by a friend of his.

John was a great chef. In his good times, he would make a mouthwatering omelet for everybody, filling it with cheese and vegetables and cooking it to fluffy perfection. He taught me how to select the best mushrooms at the market and I follow his advice today. Select a very firm one with good color and reject any that has the stem pulling away from the crown or is at all mushy.

It was at his memorial service that his brother Hap remembered John had started him on his house-painting career. John spent hours on the phone making random calls to numbers in the phone book, soliciting business for him.

There were times when his direct, unpredictable and “I don’t give a damn” attitude brought us a laugh. Another brother, Mark, tells of a time when John was living on the street in Seattle. He called and asked him to bring a blanket and warm jacket: the weather had turned cold. They headed for a local short order restaurant to eat.

The owner of the restaurant was an outspoken advocate of Prisoners of War and Missing in Action groups. His shop was decorated with American flags, patriotic signs, posters and newspaper articles about MIAs and POWs.

“How are you doing?” the owner greeted John as he picked up his food.

Mark held his breath. John didn’t answer.

“Are you having a good day?” The owner persisted.

Again Mark waited.

Finally, John reluctantly replied, “I’m having a good day.”

The owner raised his eyebrows, looked down at John, who was nervously hitching up his pants that were much too loose and in danger of dropping to his knees. He pulled his newly acquired jacket over the front of a ragged, dirty T-shirt and zipped it shut.

“Prisoners of war never have a good day,” the owner shot back, a triumphant half smile on his face; his arms folded over his chest.

They stared at each other for what seemed like a long minute.

“I don’t give a shit.” John said. He picked up his food and walked to a table, leaving the owner staring at him with his mouth open.

I wasn’t surprised. John could always spot manipulation and insensitivity. Instead of saying, “What about the prison I’m in?” or “What makes you think I ever have a good day?” he responded the only way he could: “I don’t give a shit.”

Still, beneath the pain, beneath the get-away-from-me exterior, there was in John a good heart, though most often it wasn’t easy to see.

Many spiritual people believe that there is a purpose to everyone’s life, maybe one that only God knows. Perhaps the challenge of finding that goodness was our lesson and the purpose to John’s short life.  I might find this if I choose my memories as I would a mushroom: pick those that are firm and have good color and quality and reject any that are falling apart.” I know the chef in John would like that.

In this draft, I have heard and experienced a mother’s grief, and I have experienced the sorrow of having a schizophrenic child as well as something of the guilt and self-blame.  But I have also now clearly seen something of the soul she is remembering. Very importantly, I have seen that by finding a way to retrieve memories and speak about her son, Betty has incorporated his life and his death into her own life.  She has unearthed a way to look at memories of John that make her feel healthier and she can distinguish these memories from the ones that make her feel as if she is “falling apart.” She also states what is important to her, “As a mother, I can’t dismiss his life as only tragic, only tortured, only a sad event.”  She must find “flowers in this weed-choked garden.” Following her own ultimatum, she remembers her son’s interaction with Mark.  She remembers the gifts of the Avon bottles and the piano key broach. These memories benefit the emotional function of the essay coming after Betty’s statement of what she needs to do as a mother.  Now when she tells the story of the restaurant owner’s provocation more fully, I understand more of how really hard John’s illness was for him and for those who loved him.  Betty shows John with a warm coat at last and a meal and spending time with his brother only to be asked a question by a man who is insensitive to what is before him.  When John hitches up his loose pants and comes up with something to say rather than make the situation even more difficult to handle, I feel the poignancy.

Betty says that originally she thought readers would be able to figure out the irony of the restaurateur scene for themselves.  Although Betty’s writing is understated and makes an impact because of that quality, it wasn’t quick irony that the restaurant scene required. It was the deeper glimpse into John and the way people don’t really know what is going on inside another.  Presuming to know and fighting battles with them can be sadly misdirected and alienating.  When I asked Betty to explain that interaction to the best of her knowledge and she did, the essay took advantage of her explanation.  Now she could say, “Still, beneath the pain, beneath the get-away-from-me exterior, there was in John a good heart, though most often it wasn’t easy to see.”  Despite her son’s belief that she deserted him and the pain that causes her, Betty looks beneath the surface when it comes to her son and finds the good memories she is looking for.  When she uses his words about mushrooms to tell herself how she might honor him, she combines both threads of her essay–she has found the good memories and also the mechanism that allows her to find them.  Such is the power of trusting images, of trusting writing.