Over the years I have had many reasons for writing, the childlike desire to create like drawing with crayons, the need to find a safe place to vent adolescent frustrations, and as a young adult trying to find a direction for my life. Once the words were strung together and the ideas explored, I thought I would find the hidden treasure of personal contentment. While raising a family in my strange new world of suburbia, the writing became a tool to help me improve my outlook on life and soothe myself. My journals were a hiding place and a way to put things in perspective. I had always helped friends write term papers in college and as a fundraiser I was writing all the time, letters, speeches, event brochures, and promotional materials. Most recently I have been helping friends write speeches for their children’s Bar Mitzvahs.

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The one thing missing from my writing repertoire was a way to share my creative writing. I never figured out a way to describe to people what I meant when I said I like to write. So I decided to “come out of the closet.” I started a Blog. The resulting essays, and observations I posted were like pictures hung on an invisible wall (the internet).

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I first began scribbling notes and using writing as a way to escape the pain of losing my father when I was 9 years old. When he was alive, I was the center of his world. I was the singing and dancing sensation starring in my very own variety show every Saturday night in our living room. I had a captive audience. I did not know and it did not matter that I was probably off key, and clumsy. My audience adored me. I made the room light up. When the lights went out on March 9th 1970, my show ended. No one wanted to see me sing or dance and I was not particularly interested in performing anymore anyway. Silence seemed more desirable than music. Pen on paper and pain in hand and heart led me in a new direction. I have no idea where most of those old spiral notebooks went.

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When a child loses a parent the world becomes very confusing. It is no longer a matter of what is for lunch, who am I going to play with, will I get that shiny red bicycle? Suddenly there are questions that simply cannot be answered. I don’t mean “why is the sky blue?” types of questions. I mean questions like “What is the meaning of life? What is a soul? Why can’t you hug a memory? Who is going to protect me from the bad people?” The writing was my way of making a map to lead me out of the foggy mental landscape where I suddenly found myself wandering.

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While I was growing up, my mom was always filling my head with stories about her life, the Great Depression, being homeless, dozens of cousins with complicated lives. This was her way of making me resilient. She was telling me to look at everything our family had survived. I learned I could rely on her and that I was made from strong stock. During one of my cleaning sprees in her apartment I discovered a paper bag filled with black and white photos in her bedroom closet. They were all there. Her cousins, old neighbors, and the dog she had growing up. We spent hours every week at the kitchen table putting the photos in albums and writing down all her stories in the white spaces next to the pictures. I think that was some of the most important writing I have ever done.

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I spent my life afraid of losing my mother. Would she “disappear” from my life just like my father had? Even though I was a grown, married woman with children during the time my mom and I made those books, there was also a 9-year-old child inside my head questioning why “no one lives forever.”

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Lately I’ve had difficulty writing. I’ve abandoned my blog. It’s sitting there waiting for new entries as I struggle to find my way in the world without my mother. Maybe I really did think she was going to live forever? I should write about her so all the good things she gave me will travel through eternity where we will meet up again.

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I should write.

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Thanks for Reading JWorld Café, the Poetica Magazine Blog.

Benita Haberman, Guest Blogger.

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Benita Haberman is a writer who lives and works in Chicago. Besides blogging at House of Mirrors she is a stay at home mother of a 14-year-old boy and a 12-year-old girl. She also uses her writing skills to assist people with writing speeches and toasts for a variety of special occasions from Bar Mitzvahs to Wedding Anniversaries. She has taken stand up comedy classes at the Improv Playhouse in Libertyville, Illinois and her first two 5 minute debut performances are posted on youtube. You can reach her directly at benita-houseofmirrors@blogspot.com  - Linda Pressman, Blog Editor