Lena

I only met my mother-in-law one time. From family descriptions, I knew she was once beautiful but in her sixties, she looked pretty much like most grandmothers. I was aware of the lifetime history of adventures and disasters that lived inside her and wondered if those travails were what had stolen her looks.

At the time, my daughter Melanie was two-and-a-half years old. Her grandmother Lena was visiting her brother in Detroit and wanted to meet her granddaughter. She brought a quilt she’d made—all hand sewn.

We had coffee and sandwiches and talked for a few hours before she had to leave.

All these years later, Melanie still has the quilt. She relates the story of how, one time, it was draped over a rack in the corner of the bedroom. During the night, she felt quite cold–not enough to wake her up–but enough to disturb her rest. Trying to stay warm, she drew up into a fetal position. After a while, she felt warm enough to stretch out.

When she awoke in the morning, the quilt was spread over her. She swears she didn’t do it. Sleepwalking? Perhaps.

Or, perhaps, her grandmother’s spirit sensed her chill and wanted to make her comfortable with the only gift she ever gave her.

My books are made up from real events, some more than others. I expanded this story and mixed it with another real-life happening from one of my daughter’s friends. When his father died, the family discovered a multitude of skeletons in his closet. These two incidents became The Russell House, one of my favorite books.

In Maude, I wrote the true story of my paternal grandmother’s life.

Melanie thought her grandmother Lena, who was one of the most colorful characters of all time, deserved a book of her own. She urged me to tell it, but I resisted. It took several years before I envisioned how to build the story.

Whenever possible, I use facts. Maude had her own tale to tell, and one of the events was so bizarre, I didn’t think anyone would believe it. I asked my friend Shelby and her husband Doug, who still lived in the Detroit area, to go to the library downtown and get a copy of the Detroit News article that proved I wasn’t hallucinating when I wrote it.

I won’t have that kind of proof for Lena. This work will be pieced together from what I learned during our conversation the day we met, stories my father-in-law told me, and my husband’s and his sister Clara’s recollections.

Lena’s story will be based on this skeleton of facts and opinions. It will be my job to fill in the blanks and present a breathing, flesh and blood woman—a tall task. I’m working on it. Each week, I write a chapter and read it for my writers’ group. I’m on chapter seven, and so far, they love it. Believe me, they would tell me if they didn’t.

When it’s finished, and my readers have it, I hope they love it, too, and I hope Melanie will think I did her grandmother justice.