Book Club: “If You Knew Suzy” & learning your mom’s story

I’ve mentioned earlier that the SV Moms Book Club is going to live on at the site From Left to Write and I’ve been reading one of July’s books while I’m here at the shore.  I’m not completely finished with it, but I’m actually a little late in writing my post so I just thought I’d do it now while I have a quiet little chunk of time (ok, naptime).

The book is “If You Knew Suzy” by Katherine Rosman, which is written by a journalist daughter about her mother after her mom dies from cancer.  She puts on her reporter’s hat and learns more about her mom’s life ‘from the outside.’  It sounds like depressing reading, and I’m not going to pretend that there aren’t heart-wrenching moments, but I’ve really been enjoying this.  You see, I have a sentimentality with my mom that teeters on morbidity.  This is largely my mom’s own fault, she raised me to be extremely sentimental and to even feel sorry for inanimate objects.  It sounds funny, but it’s very true!

Just a couple days ago was my birthday, and my parents very randomly happened to be vacationing in the area this week as well, so they volunteered to babysit Rayna while Marc & I went out on a date.  Rayna has been in the throes of “terrible twos” these days, with outrageous tantrums and meltdowns that are making me feel a little less than sane sometimes.  As we were getting ready to leave, Rayna’s extreme emotions flipped the other way to lots of tears crying for Mommy not to go.  And then I said it.  Something probably ripped straight from my own mom’s mouth 20 years ago: “Well you wouldn’t feel so sad now if you were nicer to me before.”  Just the type of silly guilt trip that my mom has always been so good at giving us.  And yet another proof that I am turning into my mom…since when did I start drinking seltzer?!

Right here I should just throw out a “sorry Mom!” because my Mom does read my blog and if I mention her in the slightest, she’ll huff–which I think is hilariously exaggerated–”Great, now the whole world knows all of my business!”  Well look Ma, a whole post about you!

So as many sentimental children probably do, I enjoy stories of my parents’ lives pre-Me.  One of the last times I was in Cape May I found the ultimate in slightly depressing, but ultimately touching, gifts for my mom.  It was a little book with a title like “Tell me your story Mom” or something like that, which has pages of writing prompts for all of those little things like “what did you want to be when you grew up?” and “what was your childhood home like?”  With little questions to draw out the details.  My mom was so touched when I gave this to her, and I couldn’t help but feel like it was morbid, but really it is doing what the author of “If You Knew Suzy” wished she could have done while her mother was alive.  (Her mother refused to talk about her past while she was sick)

There’s just so much about parents that children can never really know, or anyone for that matter.  There’s always going to be more you wish you could know, what your loved ones mean to other people, etc.  This book just made me think that perhaps my sentimentality isn’t as creepy as I’ve always been thinking it has been, there will most likely be a day when I wish I had these extra thoughts to comfort me.  And yes, this seems so depressing, but it also serves as a reminder that the memories we all make together are even more important than all the written stories & recollections of someone else’s memories put together.

Don’t we all always need a little reminder to pull our heads out of the sand and enjoy our loved ones?  It’s important to try to get the story and learn more, but that should just be secondary to enjoying each other in the present time.

For more information on “If You Knew Suzy” and to read the responses of other bloggers, check out the book club post on From Left to Write.

Disclosure:  I was sent a copy of this book to review.  I was not paid or obligated to write this post, all opinions are mine.