The Crab Chronicles

Mother Daughter Drama

I don't know why exactly but books with a lot of mother and daughter drama are not appealing to me. They appeal to a lot of women, and I understand that, because the relationship with your mom is a crucial one, and if it's not good you are always going to feel the lack.

I have been very lucky in my life, because my mother and I got along really  well about 95% of the time. She died in 2020. I was a caretaker for her for the last 7 years of her life. We talked about everything.

My mother, Elva Hasty Thompson, was a consummate storyteller and her stories were always really interesting and often funny. I encouraged her to write blogs in her final years, and after she died I compiled them into a sort of memoir, Singing to the Cows. She talked a lot about her childhood and about topics of interest to her, like cooking. When I re-read the book I hear her voice clearly, and it's like she is sitting in the room with me telling the story, which I cherish.

Not all mothers and daughters get along as well, unfortunately.

I had a friend growing up who was constantly fighting with her mother, and I couldn't understand why. I got along great with her mom, and she was always incredibly nice to me. I think she loved her daughter deeply, but she could not figure her out. When I found out the daughter had been diagnosed as bipolar it made perfect sense to me. I always felt sorry for both mother and daughter, and I felt like if they had just gotten some therapy things would have been much better. They were greatly suspicious of any sort of mental health treatment, and one of the hallmarks of being bipolar is a resistance to any sort of therapy.

I digressed. Your mother is your first teacher, your first friend, your confidante, and also your example of what it means to be a woman.

Most of us grow up either emulating our mother or wanting to be the total opposite of our mother. It's always a multi-layered, complex relationship.

I didn't realize until this morning that several of my books prominently feature mother/daughter relationships. Fascinating topic. Below I explain this in more detail.

 

The Garland BellesThis is my newest novel and it centers on the relationship between a mother and a daughter. When Hadley's mother Grace dies, Hadley learns a lot of starting things about her prim and proper mother's life, astonishing things. As a result, Hadley gradually gains a new acceptance of herself, and finds the strength to reassess and reorganize her own life, which looks idyllic on the surface but isn't at all, in reality.

I found when I was writing about Grace that I really liked her, and it was somewhat sad for me to write about the many mistakes she made in her life. She is a bright, dynamic character, who felt constrained by the social etiquette of her small southern hometown.

I don't want to give away the book's ending, but it was deeply satisfying to tie up the loose ends. My mother was a voracious reader and she would get really angry if a book didn't "end up right." There is something emotionally satisfying about resolving conflicts by the end of the book; in fact I think as humans we crave that.

 

Dancing in the WreckageMothers and daughters feature prominently in this novel about a group of characters who all learn new truths about their lives when a freewheeling and somewhat dangerous attorney dies, setting in motion a set of events that change many lives for the better -- eventually.

The main character, Amy, has an awkward and frustrating relationship with her mother because her mother refuses to tell Amy anything about her father, who was never present in her life. There is a distance there that causes Amy a lot of grief, but she is lucky because she has a very close relationship with her aunt who was very prominent in her childhood, in a positive way.

 

Ghosts in the Garden CityThis was my first novel and I started it with the idea that the entire plot would center around the revelations that occur when Leigh inherits an old suitcase that was her grandmother's, and sets out to solve a mystery. As I wrote it I began to realize that I really wanted to make it about Leigh's mother Peggy, too, because she's a very complex woman who tries to lead a very respectable, proper life, but is forced to confront some really awkward truths about herself as her daughter learns more and more about her grandmother.

 

Return to Marietta This book centers around a marriage, but there is a mother/daughter dynamic between the main character, Lillian, and her own mother, Victoria, who feels helpless and frustrated by the Great Depression and its effects on her daughter. Victoria stays awake all night cooking food for her daughter to take on the long car trip that is the centerpiece of the book.

Lillian is based on my grandmother, Wilma Butler Hasty, and Victoria is based on her mother Beulah Butler, a lady I never met but heard a lot about over the years. Below, my grandmother's family around 1921. My grandmother is on the far right, with the big hair. Granny is the older lady with glasses, seated.

 

If you like to read novels that explore the complicated relationships between mothers and daughters, check out these books.

#motherdaughternovels, #storiesofmothersanddaughters, #daughtersandmothers, #dramabetweenmothersanddaughters, #familydrama

Books That Changed Me

I belong to a Facebook group called Friends and Fiction [excellent group if you love to read] and a lady posted on there about finding a first edition of the book Roots, by Alex Haley. It got me to thinking about books that have changed my life. 

There are basically three ways to learn about history.

• Read a textbook or nonfiction book
• Live through historic events
• Read Historical Fiction

For my money, Historical Fiction (HF) is the best way to learn. The best books in that genre put the reader inside the mind of someone living in the past. I've traveled the world, in many different time periods, because of Historical Fiction. If I could teach History I would have students read HF novels because they teach so effectively if they are well written.

Here are some of the books that forever changed me because of the writer's skill at putting me right inside that time period, seeing the world through the eyes of a character. It's one thing to read about something. It's quite another thing to vicariously live through it. I can tell my children all day long about the events of 9/11/01 but I don't know if I have the skill to really convey how it felt to live through that terrible, eerily quiet day, not knowing if our country was under attack and we all might be facing imminent invasion or even death.

Books have incredible power. Here are a few that changed my life.

Roots, by Alex Haley, 1976

I was in high school when the book was originally published, and I read it very quickly after watching the miniseries on TV. Haley skillfully told the story of his ancestor who was captured in Africa, Kunta Kinte, who endured the Middle Passage and lived as an enslaved person, suffering through horrors that are hard to imagine nowadays. The book opened my eyes to something that had just seemed sad when I studied it in History class. Reading about human beings being treated like property gave me as much insight as any white person can have into that terrible time. Some of my ancestors owned slaves, which is a terrible and tragic thing. I wish I could travel through time and make that right, but unfortunately I can't. All I can do is try to raise children who judge people by their character, not color, as Dr. King so eloquently stated. Since both my children have dated non-white people I like to think I did something right.

This is a book that deserves to be read by everyone, of every race. Understanding what happened is crucial if you want to call yourself an educated student of History.

The Winds of War, by Herman Wouk, 1971

My father loved History and he tried to teach me about World War II but I always found everything about the topic really boring, until I read this book. The book came out in 1971 and my parents both read it. I saw the massive book in our bookcase and didn't want to ever read it, but while home from college my junior year I had nothing to read and I started it. I quickly found myself entranced by the story of the Henry family. The father, Pug, has access to world leaders like FDR and Churchill, but we also learn about the lives of his grown children and their spouses and children. One of his sons married a young Jewish woman so there is a fair amount about the Holocaust. When the miniseries came out I was really disappointed but only because in my head everything looked so different -- which is why it's a mistake to read a book before watching the movie or miniseries. The sequel, War and Remembrance, was also quite good.

The Mists of Avalon, by Marian Zimmer Bradley, 1984

I loved this retelling of the Arthurian legend through the eyes of Morgaine, Arthur's half-sister. It explores the time in England when Paganism was being banished and replaced by Christianity, which was not an entirely good thing. The ability to use herbs and plants to heal was lost, for one thing. It started me on the path of questioning traditional Christian beliefs, and wanting to have an open mind about all matters of faith. This is from the Prologue: "I have no quarrel with Christ, only with his priests, who call the Great Goddess a demon and deny that she ever held power in this world. At best, they say that her power was of Satan. Or else they clothe her in the blue robe of the Lady of Nazareth--who indeed had power in her own way, too--and say that she was ever virgin. But what can a virgin know of the sorrows and travail of mankind?"

When I lost my dad to cancer I was 33 and I started questioning everything about orthodoxy and exploring the idea of death as simply another state of being. My belief system started to change, but in a good way. This book started it all, years before Dad died, and I highly recommend it.

 

I have never really tried to write a book that could strictly be classified as HF but my book Return to Marietta is set between 1923 and 1933. I hope I conveyed accurately what it must have been like to live in that era, but who knows. My one fantasy novel, Heart of My Own Heart, combines time travel and takes place from the time of Queen Elizabeth I to today, so I did a lot of research and I hope I did a good job there.

 

historicalfictionispowerful, #themagicofbooks, #teachinghistorythroughnovels

The Right to Know Who We Are

I have never wondered about my parentage. Every time I see a photo of myself I am reminded of the fact that I am the "spitting image" of my dad, what he would look like in female form, basically. According to 23andMe my mother and I are connected by 49.84% of our DNA.

When you get the testing done by Ancestry or 23andMe it includes a list of people who share your DNA. Increasingly, more and more people get tested, and many of them learn their parent who raised them had no biological connection to them. As you can imagine, that type of information shatters one's identity.

My friend Rob grew up and lived most of his life secure in the knowledge that he was his father's son. They shared the same name - Rob is a "Jr." However, when Rob did the DNA testing through Ancestry half of his relatives -- the ones on his father's side -- were missing. He wrote about that very upsetting event here. Rob was Donor Conceived.

Many people (millions) are learning, through Ancestry and 23andMe testing, that they are part of the DC (Donor Conceived) community, and the NPE (Non Parent Expected) community.

According to a survey done by the Pew Research Center in 2019: "About one-in-seven U.S. adults (15%) say they have ever used a mail-in DNA testing service from a company such as AncestryDNA or 23andMe, according to a new Pew Research Center survey... Roughly a quarter (27%) of those who say they have used mail-in DNA testing say they learned about close relatives they didn’t know about previously."

So how many people are now going through the painful process of finding out they have a previously unknown parent, like my friend Rob? Today, there are 341,567,135 people in the USA. If 15% have had the genetic testing done (that was the percentage in 2019) that's 51 million people. About 5% of those people will find out they are part of the NPE community.

That has led to a lot of people finding out that half of their medical history is missing. Millions of people are out there wondering about their parentage and their medical histories. My friend Rob was lucky, because one of his half siblings passed along the medical history of his biological father. Oftentimes, people who owe their existence to artificial insemination are not so lucky.

 

I was inspired to write this blog when I read this article this other day: AncestryDNA, 23andMe introduce you to new relatives. Now the nightmare: They won't offer medical history.

I am the parent of two adopted children, adopted from overseas, and my children have no idea about their medical history. They don't even know the names of their biological fathers. So we don't know if they have the genetic markers for cancer, Huntington's Disease, Parkinsons, or any other disease or medical condition. 

Knowing your medical history is very important. The right to know one's medical history can mean the difference between life and death.There are diseases which, if detected early, can be cured or at least managed. But if you don't know your history you don't even know if you have the genetic markers, and should be tested for them.

I have been a litigation paralegal since 1985 and I have seen a lot of frivolous litigation but there is one case I would love to see go to the Supreme Court. Imagine a man who finds out his father was a guy his mother had a brief affair with, and he wants to know the medical history of his biological father. He gets the genetic testing done and finds out the identity of the man. He asks the bio dad for a medical history. The bio dad, who is ashamed of his son born out of wedlock, refuses to hand over any medical history information. The son sues him. Bio dad continues to refuse to disclose anything. The case could make its way through lower courts and wind up making new law in the Supreme Court.

"A medical history is important, and no reasonable person will deny that. It can save someone's life," according to my friend Jack, a retired lawyer. I regret that Jack is long retired and can't take on a case. He gave me some valuable insights in a phone call recently.

One aspect of this is whether or not the right of privacy would outweigh the right to know. That would be important for the court to consider.

If you aren't familiar with how lawsuits work, here's the 411. It usually takes years to get a case through lower courts, to the level where it's going to be heard in the United States Supreme Court. When you take a case to the Supreme Court they decide whether or not to grant cert (hear the case) based on a number of factors. At the circuit court level there has to be disagreement about the law, for example.

I feel strongly that every person has the right to know who their biological parents are, and their medical history.

I would love to see an attorney take on this kind of case in real life, working for a real client, and take the case to the Supreme Court. I want the United States Supreme Court to make new law that says YES, we ALL have a right to know our medical history. That ruling would change lives. It would likely save lives. It would not be about money. It would be about JUSTICE.

Call me old-fashioned or naive. I don't care. I will always think justice is important.

#DNAtestingoutcomes, #medicalhistoryforthenpecommunity, #testcaseonmedicalhistory