Synkroniciti is thrilled to welcome back writer Donna Cameron, whom we recently nominated for a Best of the Net award for her memoir essay “Sew to Speak” in our Audacity issue, with a powerful flash memoir that explores the dignity of grief and the human right to feel sorrow and loss.
In “It’s What You Do,” Donna recalls the days after her father’s funeral, particularly an off-key and uninvited visit from her best friend’s mother:
“Ruth wasted no time. With a beatific expression and a voice of honeyed certainty, she told Mom there’s no reason to be sad. Walter’s in heaven. Already making a place for her there, and they’ll be reunited someday, for all eternity.
‘This,’ she purred, ‘is a time for rejoicing.'”
In projecting a confidence and optimism that seem designed more to comfort herself than the bereaved, Ruth crosses a line. Donna watches her mother, a woman of restraint who generally does what is expected and seemly, move with quiet resolve to defend her right to grieve.
In just 242 words, 246 including the title, Donna paints a vivid portrait of two women in an exchange achingly familiar to many who have experienced loss. The piece celebrates the power of her mother’s spirit in that moment with a quiet awe. She is not presented as a perfect human being–far from it, with her Winstons and vodka tonic–but she shines with an agency that inspires not only her daughter but all of us.
Read “It’s What You Do” in Synkroniciti’s Dignity, Vol. 8, No. 3, available here: https://synkroniciti.com/the-magazine/purchase-individual-issues/.
Donna Cameron is the author of the Nautilus gold winning book A Year of Living Kindly. While she considers herself an activist for kindness, she admits to occasional lapses into bitchiness. Her articles and essays have been featured in the Brevity Blog, Writer’s Digest, Dorothy Parker’s Ashes, Eclectica, and many other publications. She lives in the Pacific Northwest where she enjoys outdoor activities that require little or no coordination.