The Day I Found Out I Wasn't the Only Writer in My Family

My Aunt Maymee died in 2003 at the ripe old age of 93. My mother and I were tasked with cleaning out her small apartment, which was filled with lots of clothes, as well as boxes, catalogs, nick nacks, toys and more. We had to go through every catalog payment envelope and every piece of clothing to make sure she didn't leave any money in there. It took us three months to sort through everything.

Toward the end of our efforts, I was cleaning out a dresser drawer when I came across a notebook. I opened it up and was very surprised to see that Aunt Maymee had written on every page. It took me a few minutes of flipping through pages before I realized it was a novel. She even had a pen name -- Mae Bow.

It was a story of two girls, about their childhood. I think she had modeled the characters after herself and my grandmother -- they were Irish twins.

But I found myself wondering, why didn't she tell me she had written it? She knew I was a writer. She knew I was interested in writing. We could have really bonded over this. We could have had so many great conversations. Why would she choose to keep it a secret?

Maybe she was afraid her work wasn't good. I haven't read it, to be honest. I tried typing it once, with the expectation that I would type the whole thing and make copies for the whole family. But I quickly abandoned that idea. The first few pages are full of long, run-on sentences. She doesn't break up her words into easy-to-read paragraphs.

How fun, though, would it have been to be able to exchange stories with each other and talk 'shop' with her? I suppose it was so personal that she was afraid that whoever she shared it with might not like it. Did she even share it with my grandmother, with whom she lived most of her senior years?

Unfortunately, I will never know why she kept it to herself. All I can do is be thankful that I found it and cherish it until I see her again. But knowing that writing blood runs in my family is kind of comforting. It makes me feel like that much stronger of a writer.

Please check out my novel, In Fashion's Web on Amazon.