Starting to Forget. Day 143.

Dr. Filas, my professor at Westfield State who taught me about memoir writing, said, “It doesn’t have to be exact. You can paraphrase or embellish if you need to.”

Although I am not against the practice of embellished dialogue for some, I will not use it in my writing. Some conversations stick in my mind, but others are foggy, so I will say “I have said” or “He may have said.” The exact details are important to me, so I will not say definitively that something was said if it was not.

The problem is, it’s been twelve years and I am starting to forget things.

“Did Dad like onions?” Max asked me the other day.

I opened my mouth to answer, but would not bet my life on it.

Roger wrote with his left hand but used a leftie glove for baseball. “Did Dad bat and golf rightie?” I asked Tyler.

“He definitely batted righty.” He answered. “Football was left.”

Roger’s face, scent, and voice are tucked away in a safe place in my mind, but some things have already fled.

I will put this on my pros list as another good reason to continue writing my memoir. Putting it on paper while I still remember everything, or most things, locks it into the world, and not embellishing ensures it’s everyone’s story about Roger, not only mine.

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