Looking back on it now I believe that I had an out of body experience. I have never told my family this for fear that I would be the object of their severe sarcasm. Still I remember it clearly.
I was 3 years old, lying on the couch surrounded by my siblings. We were watching Miami Vice. I don't remember twitching just my sister screaming at me to open my eyes. That is when it happened. That is when I could see everything as if I was looking down on me and my brothers and sisters from the ceiling. My sister began shaking me telling me to wake up. She screamed at my mom's boyfriend that something was wrong with me. I watched as he ran to the phone and called 911. We lived in a trailer on the landfill, far enough from the hospital that I will always be grateful that he chose to drive me to the hospital instead of waiting for the ambulance.
That is the only thing I will be grateful to that man for.
He told the dispatcher that his girlfriend's daughter was having a seizure and that if any police pulled him over for speeding he would kill them. He slammed the phone down and ran over to the couch and picked me up. I felt his arms around me. This physicality brought me back into my own skin. I couldn't see however. I remember screaming to him that I couldn't see.
I have done a lot of research with this memory because I wanted to get it right. I wanted it to be the complete truth. I emailed my 5 brothers and sisters and asked them to recount that night for me. There were some similar threads with all of the stories--important ones--me having a seizure and watching Miami Vice topping the list. Everyone had a different story. Were all of our memories wrong. Was I wrong for thinking that I could actually have an out of body experience? I don't think that any of them are wrong it just shows that every memory is fallible just like the vessels that carry them. But just because my memory is fallible doesn't mean that I shouldn't try to get the story as true to my memory as possible for my readers. I have learned this and so much more in this amazing class.
I have learned a great deal this semester about the literary memoir. I have learned that your voice can be poetic like Angelou, young like McCourt or even raw and bare boned like Wiesel. The personal truth comes through revisions and the journey of transcribing your own life to share unconditionally with others. I have learned that when one is writing their personal truth it bleeds into a larger, more universal truth for the readers that are tagging along in the journey. I have learned that it is not only what you say but definitely how you say it. I have learned that when you are writing down the truth it does become timeless and puts your life on the map. That a life lived is a life worth writing about. We are all in this world together which is why we need to all share our stories with one another. I have been able to see the world from the eyes of Angelou, Dinesen, McCourt, Nabokov, Karr, Hughes, Hampl, Conroy and Weisel. I have seen the history of the world seen through these amazing authors eyes. I have been able to know things that I would have never known had these authors not thought that their story was important enough to share, or even if they didn't they were willing to write it down and share it anyway. I have been subjected to racism, seen the Elephants of Africa, picked up coals in the streets of Ireland, watched patiently the butterflies that I loved, learned the hidden family secrets, lost my faith, learned to revise to find the truth, drove without fear and stared death in the face of my fellow man. I have done this all through the amazing stories and truths told by this incredible authors. I am very lucky indeed.
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