Time is cruel. It punishes. I mean, we sentence people to time.
-Maureen Cahill, Lethal Weapon,1×07 “Fashion Police”
The duality of grief and memories
A Walk To Remember was the story that didn’t have a personal link to me but to what a friend said to me. Actually, it one of few short stories from this project that I didn’t make personal. I think because of that fact that I was able to keep it completely ground in science fiction. I wouldn’t call it mundane science fiction (a new term I’ve learned) because I did put one technologically advance software in there but I didn’t make it the focal point. My point was tackling the process of griefing, specifically the “wrong” way of doing it.
Now, a friend of mine suffered the loss in the family while I was doing security and I offered my ear. While talking about who we have lost over the years on this earth, he said something that really stood out to me. He told me that the memories were so powerful that he can’t get them out of his mind and wished that he could. I asked if he really meant that and, to my surprise, he said, “Yes”. It was something I never expected anybody to say.
I mean, I’ve lost countless people in my life, my dad being the biggest loss. I still have his face in my mind along with all the memories we shared. Well, mainly the emotional attachment to those memories. Nonetheless, I don’t think I would want to give up those memories just to make the pain go away. It’s not healthy, you know? But, I was looking at my friend and all the pain he was in and I could understand why he felt that way at that time. It was too much. Damn near overbearing and I knew that it was never going to go away – not completely. I don’t care what anyone says. Time doesn’t heal.
So, when writing A Walk To Remember, I wanted to keep the same emotion. Everything in the story played off the theme of memory as I had the main character go through everything she was told to do while giving the reader subtle jabs of emotional suspense. Since I knew my readers are just as intelligent as me – if not more, I figured that they got the idea that something happened – the what and who if you will. I just wasn’t going to tell them how, why, when, or where. Again, the idea was to get the reader emotionally invested before ripping their hearts.
Doing all that required a complete timeline of the main character’s life so I can then choose which event I wanted to plant into the story to keep the reader emotionally interested. You know…now that I’m saying this out loud, I think this is my first time doing a completely sad story with no happy ending. It was quite delightful, really. I honestly didn’t think I was capable of it since my writing tends to lean towards…well…other emotions. Even the twist at the end doesn’t really satisfy anybody because the pain is still there, much like grief. And, with that, I hope you enjoy the story.
You can buy the book on Amazon. The link is here.
You can also learn about it on Goodreads. The link for it is here.
