Writing Relationships: Mining Family Histories

Recently, I finished reading The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan, which I highly recommend. It was filled with gorgeous writing and was a dynamic exploration of mother/daughter relationships and what it means to be a woman: the assumptions, expectations, internal struggles, triumphs. I thoroughly enjoyed it and when the happens with literature, I start thinking about what I learned and what I can take. I ask myself, how can I make this mine?

As a writer, I do believe in at least starting with writing what I know (or what I think I know). It should follow, then, that I’d write more about — or at least be inspired by — what’s actually happened to me and my family. I have some aunts and uncles who keep telling me I’ve got to write about the family. It’s true there’s lots of material. For starters, my mom is one of ten children and the stories her brothers and sisters share over drinks and cigarettes and classic rock on the radio at family parties are hilarious, heartbreaking, and unbelievable. And my dad is one of six children, raised in Alabama, and he’s flat out told me his life would make one hell of a story.

I think my relatives are absolutely right, but I’m hesitant to write their stories. Their stories would stop belonging to them as soon as I put pen to paper. The happenings would be colored by my interpretation, and what if something crucial was lost in that kind of translation? I’d hate for someone I love to frown and tell me, “That’s not it. That’s not how it happened at all.”

My dad is a character I’d love to faithfully get down on paper. I was visiting with him and the rest of my family in Florida over the holidays. While I was visiting, I went with Dad to pick up my brother and his wife and their baby from the airport in Tampa; they flew in from out-of-state for the holidays. Our route took us over the Tampa Bay Sunshine Skyway Bridge.

My dad and I traveling over the Tampa Bay Sunshine Skyway Bridge

It was absolutely beautiful.

It was also right by the memorial for the USCGC Blackthorn, a coast guard ship that sank in 1980. I’d never heard of the tragedy and had no idea the memorial existed, even though Dad was in the coast guard. As we unknowingly neared the memorial, Dad told me he actually helped with the rescue and recovery efforts. He thought there was a memorial somewhere nearby and sure enough, we started seeing signs. We pulled over.

My dad talks a lot. He’ll talk to anyone about anything. It’s fortunate he has so many captivating and engaging stories to tell, but he’s kind of funny about when he chooses to share them. His story about the sinking of the Blackthorn came out of nowhere. I mean, I consider myself close to my dad, but I had no idea that on January 28, 1980, he was eating breakfast at Denny’s when the tragedy of the USCGC Blackthorn came on the news. He left immediately. Apparently, there was hardly anyone there, just a skeleton crew, so he went out with Army Corps of Engineers on their landing craft.

It was dark, but he could see other boats picking people up in the water. When they reached the Blackthorn, the ramp was lowered down, and they got to work right away. He was able to get to the scene quick, just by luck, and he beat the local police and other first responders there. The other people there helping might have been just regular people, volunteers off the street, because there wasn’t a large police or coast guard presence until the daylight came. In the morning, Dad told me you could see the ship on its side in the water, and you could see the bodies and the cars. The USCGC Blackthorn had just completed on overhaul at the Gulf Tampa Drydock Company and was outward bound.

The divers started bringing bodies up. Dad could hear the hard-hat diver talking over the radio. He said, “I found one.” The man was holding onto the railing. He’d been coming through a doorway, but his lifejacket got hung up on the door. He was trapped and drowned. The hard-hat diver handed my father the body, and my dad put the body in a rescue litter. More and more bodies were brought to the surface. Some were standing straight. Some were sitting down. Some looked like they’d had just gotten out of the shower with towels around their waist. The one thing they had in common was that they were stiff and their eyes were wide open. Dad told me he remembered looking up one time on the flight deck. All the bodies were there because the medical examiner was doing her investigation, but it looked like a party. Few bodies were laying flat and some even looked like they were running. “I guess that’s the last thing they did,” Dad said. Some had nothing on, but some were wearing towels, uniforms, lounging clothes; the disaster had come out of nowhere and caught them all off guard. My dad participated in many other rescues and recoveries, but he told me this one stands out because the victims were all “coast guard guys.”

My dad spent two days at the scene, helping bring bodies up. It could have been longer; it wasn’t easy to measure time. He’d sometimes take a break and go on the ship and have coffee, maybe have something to drink and eat, but then the rescue and recovery operations would start all over again. After a long time, my dad finally went up to the captain. There was break in the operations because the ship had to be taken to port to recover the rest of bodies. My dad wanted to report back to his own ship and to make sure everything was good. The captain assured him that it was, and later on, my dad got a letter from the coast guard, thanking him for his efforts.

Dad says his worst rescue and recovery mission was his first one. There was guy bobbing in the water, and when they pulled him out, he was just half a person.

My dad doesn’t like to upset me, so he made sure to emphasize that he remembers the good times, too. He did rescue people and had a hell of a time finding drugs on ships.

I guess it’s always weird to think of your parents as people, individuals who had lives before I existed, who have layered and complex histories. Everyone really does have a story to tell. And I think if someone’s willing to share it, it’s imperative they do so. Even if my family’s stories change as I weave them into my fictions, the stories will live on. And sometimes, I think that’s all we’re really looking for — a place for our stories to live on, so we live on. We’re remembered. We matter.

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