“From the silence of sorrowful hours
The desolate mourners go,
Lovingly laden with flowers
Alike for the friend and the foe”

FRANCIS MILES FINCH

Every year I read of postings that people share about Memorial Day. There always seems to be some confusion about it. Memorial Day is a day set aside to honor those who died in wars. Although there is a lot of speculation about exactly when it began, most scholars think it started after the Civil War. It was originally known as Decoration Day. I can remember my grandparents calling it that when I was a wee one. It appears that refers to the placement of flowers on fallen soldiers’ graves.

According to National Geographic, after the Civil War, “in subsequent years women, especially in the South, began tending to the graves of fallen soldiers, often regardless of which side they fought for.” I would like to believe that this is true – given the deep divisions we have in our country now.

Regardless, I think of those who perished on Memorial Day. Especially those US Navy men who were my father’s friends with whom he served on the USS Oklahoma in World War II. And I am eternally grateful that he was not among them. But I know, through connecting with my new family, and hearing a lot of stories, that he carried grief and guilt with him the rest of his life.

I also think of all the ancestors who I’ve found through genealogy. I am eternally grateful that they survived – in the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, the Civil War, the Spanish-American War, and World War II. Otherwise I would not be here typing away. I will celebrate their lives on Veteran’s Day – which honors those who made it through.

Just some thoughts for your Memorial Day “celebrations.”

When presenting those research results, or meeting with prospective new clients, I gradually became aware that my voice was sounding different. It cracked and was slightly shaky. It resembled Katharine Hepburn’s. If you’re old enough, you’ll remember her. She was a very famous actor with a career that began in the 1930s and lasted seven decades. I used to watch old movies late at night with my mom and grandmother when I was a kid on our twelve-inch black and white TV. The African Queen, starring Katharine and Humphrey Bogart, was one of our favorites. She, along with Lauren Bacall, were two of my idols. My goal was to grow up to be as sophisticated and glamorous as they were in those films from years gone by. Although Hepburn was one of my much-loved actors, I most certainly did not want to sound like her. Lauren Bacall, by comparison, sounded much better, with a deep, sultry voice. Unfortunately, I never had a sultry voice, and alas, I wound up sounding like Katharine did in her later years.

Around the same time, I noticed the vocal crack and hand shaking, I also perceived a change in my handwriting. It just didn’t look as good as it had, with the letters appearing somewhat shaky. When I first started to write something, it was really bad; fortunately, it diminished a bit as I wrote more. When I signed my name, either on a check or a charge slip, the Ms (and I had two of them—Mary and Martin) would be particularly squiggly. I’d always written well in longhand, although it was not as beautiful as my mother’s. She learned to write in the heyday of gorgeous penmanship. As a kid in the 1950s, sitting at our little flip-top desks, we learned The Palmer Method for cursive writing. Woe unto you if you did not reproduce those letters correctly. Worse, if you were unlucky enough to go to Catholic school, the nuns would crack your knuckles with a ruler for that infraction. Kids now have no idea what cursive is, and even our teenaged grandchildren struggle with trying to write anything in longhand. It makes you wonder how their signatures for legal purposes will be handled in the future. Like hieroglyphics, our cursive writing will someday be studied by archeologists attempting to understand
our civilization.

Finally, I began to have problems holding drinking containers like coffee cups or glasses. When I attempted to hold something with one hand, a very obvious tremor would start. This was worse in my left hand, so whatever was in the glass or cup would spill. This is not good in business situations when you’re juggling a cup of coffee or an adult beverage in your left hand, keeping your right hand free to shake hands (in a good way) with clients or prospects.

People would see this and say, “Are you OK?”

I’d smile and say, “Of course. I’ve probably just had too much caffeine (or had a rough day, if I was holding a glass of wine).”

I found it horribly embarrassing. In addition, the more it was brought to my attention, or the more stressed I was, the worse it got. Since I was a kid, I never liked to draw attention to myself, particularly if I felt I was being different or weird in some way. Those tremors were most definitely different. The only people I’d seen with anything remotely resembling them were old people or people with something horrible like Parkinson’s disease. I certainly did not consider myself old and hoped with all my heart that I did not have Parkinson’s.

To continue the saga of my discoveries, I’ve decided to do more than one paragraph at a time. I’m not sure I’d live long enough to get to the end of the book if I keep going at that rate.

So, here’s the next installment (continuing the story of doing market research at a small ad agency):

We also frequently unearthed some tidbits that could have major financial consequences, and it was wonderful to be able to tell clients how much money they could save or gain in additional revenues. We did a number of projects where clients had double-digit returns on the money they spent on research. That turned a research spend into an investment, something any decent businessperson would appreciate. Those were the best assignments we had, and they usually led to repeat business for us.

One of our most memorable projects involved a commercial feasibility test for an engineering firm. During the presentation of the results, the president of the client company jumped up, banged his fist on the table, and shouted, “Holy shit! I knew it!”

He was a large, florid man, who looked like he might have a bad temper, and I wasn’t sure if he was pleased or planned to hit me. Fortunately, as it turned out, he was extremely pleased. His company of left-brained engineers had convinced him that a new idea they had would make them all rich and famous. Our research showed that interest in it among companies that might be likely to buy it was lukewarm at best.

The results of the research saved his company at least a million dollars in development costs. That man was one happy client. This is the kind of
experience market researchers live for.

His project and others provided extraordinary case histories when we prospected for new business, and we loved telling those stories. Although the work was a passion for me, I did not initially enjoy sharing the results with clients. Eventually, after years of practice, my skills improved, and those presentations even became somewhat pleasurable. Like many ad agencies, ours was a culture of being somewhat intimidated by our clients—since in their minds they were always right. Of course, they pay the bills. As someone with a less than robust dose of self-confidence, I fit into that culture easily, so it took some time for me to relax enough to enjoy what I did well. I liked the prospecting even less until I learned to let the prospects talk first and then explain to them how we could help them. It was like telling a story. Then it became fun.

Perhaps this was a hint that I might be good at telling stories?

It was the Martinis that caused it. Once I began my discoveries of my new family, I had to share the story. It was just too good to keep to myself. Other than family, who heard agonizing blow-by-blow descriptions of the breakthroughs, my client @MyraJolivet, also a writer, was the first to learn about it. We had drinks after work one night and following a few sips to loosen me up, I began to relate the story which subsequently became Sibling Revelries. This was back in 2012 or so. I was still working, so didn’t have as much spare time as I do now.

The first words out of Myra’s mouth, which opened in surprise with every new tidbit, were, “You have to write this! What’s more, it would make a fantastic screenplay.”

I just laughed and said, “Sure, in my spare time. Maybe when I retire.”

Time passed, and I began to divert my clients to a fellow market researcher. This freed me up for doing other things – like writing a book. It began as the stories of the common father and the mothers. Then Myra stepped in again and connected me to a writing coach with whom she’d worked.

@MaxRegan and I had several telephone conversations, after which he looked at my first feeble efforts and said, “No, this has to be a memoir – the whole story of you and how you found your siblings. And the impact it had on all of you. But especially you. It is your memoir. It can’t be just about the parents.”

Thus, in January 2013, I began my education as an author. From a background of creating market research reports and doing business writing, I had a lot to learn. Like what a memoir is. There have been many people who helped me along the way. They are blamed in the acknowledgments.

After much introspection, the manuscript grew to 26,000 words. I was thrilled. Until someone with much more knowledge than I told me, “You need many more words – at least 40,000.”

I hit that goal, then pitched to an agent, @JohnnieBernhard. She told me, “You need many more words – at least 60,000.”

So, I wrote and wrote and wrote to achieve that elusive goal. Thanks to my Critique Circle, my writing actually got better – and longer. I even spent some time writing some short stories, one of which was published! That gave me more self-confidence than I deserved. But it felt good.

After numerous agent rejections, I decided to self-publish. This started an entirely new education. Thanks to @FernBrady, @ManonLavoie, and @Dylan Drake, the masterpiece was formatted, and a cover designed.

The next steps are to market it. So, tell all your friends!

So very happy to say that both the eBook and hard copy versions of Sibling Revelries are now live on Amazon.

This has been a five-year journey, filled with angst, editing, more angst, and yet more editing. After being rejected by more agents than I would have cared to, I made the decision to self-publish.

This was not a simple thing to do. The writing is perhaps a quarter of the work involved in publishing a book. Someone who may know how to write (after five years I kind of learned that), now has to become skilled at formatting a manuscript correctly and designing a cover. I chose to reach out for help.

Thanks to @FernBrady at Houston Writers Guild, I found two pros to do the heavy lifting @ManonLavoie, formatter par excellence, and @DylanDrake, who did a bang-up job of designing the cover you see here.

It’s been quite a journey. Now I have to market it!

#memoir #family #findingfamily #Marinecorps #strongwomen #onlychild#USNavy #WWII