What is the Hardest Thing You’ve Ever Written?

When I first thought of this topic for a blog post, I reflexively thought of the experience of writing my memoir, which is about to drop very soon. It was very hard for me to relive the events about which I wrote. The road to completion was riddled with speed bumps, many of which I constructed. There were tears … a ton of them. A few years before, though, I had written something that was far more challenging, even though not a writing task of extended duration to create.

I was in a hospital room at my mother’s bedside. She was sleeping most of the time at this point in her palliative journey, and the solitude allowed for a lot of reflection. One Saturday afternoon, as I glanced up from my screen to look over at Mom, I told myself I needed to start writing her obituary.

I looked at this woman, now a shell of her former self, yet all the eyes of my heart could see was the amazing person I could only hope to be. How could I do justice to a description of all that she was, I questioned. Worse, I felt guilty writing about her as though she were already dead. Nevetheless, the task was mine, and I wouldn’t have wanted it any other way. There were tears … just as there are now as I remember trying to find the ‘perfect’ words to both honor my mother, and to immortalize her even as I was saying ‘goodbye’ to her in my writing.

Well … I shared mine … now please comment and share the most difficult thing you’ve ever written.

~ Kathe

©2016 Kathe Messina