An Intermezzo of One’s Own
By Liza Nash Taylor | December 6, 2024 |
INTERMEZZO (noun) As per Merriam-Webster: a movement coming between the major sections of an extended musical work.
Usually, I draft my quarterly WU posts about a month before they’re due. This time, I’ve ditched my intended topic. Best laid plans and all that. The piece I find myself working on today is not prescriptive writing advice, nor is it about the angst of the author’s journey. This week, I’m at my father’s house, working with him—at his request—to edit the obituary he wrote for himself. Also, in the quiet of my childhood bedroom, I’m drafting a eulogy. Since I arrived on November 6th, I’ve avoided national news and haven’t begun to process my feelings about the election results.
Real life intrudes. Sometimes endings aren’t clearly visible from the start.
In late October, my ninety-five-year-old father went into the hospital with atrial fibrillation. A week later, on Election Day, he received a stage-four cancer diagnosis with months to live. Hospice entered the plot. The scenery changed, with the guest room of Dad’s house quickly reconfigured into a hospital room. Time changed; with glimpses of future holidays, minus the main character. Simultaneously, present time ticks relentlessly forward as he loses strength. Days and hours drag in a kind of static monotony measured in loads of laundry and empty cubes in the big plastic organizer that holds rainbow-colored meds.
My father’s mind is still razor-sharp. He knows the grass-cutting service needs to be paid. He explains to me how to configure the tube on his nebulizer breathing apparatus. I didn’t know he’d written his own obit until he asked me, from his hospital bed, to edit it for him.
My father’s obituary is a first-person thank-you note for what he calls his “charmed” life, starting with his parents and siblings and expressing gratitude to both institutions and people who’ve helped him along through life. Frankly, if I were being paid to edit it as a personal essay, I’d call his work self-indulgent, rambling, and unevenly paced, burdened by an overabundance of backstory and flashback, with too many named characters. Under the circumstances, I’m doing my best to correct punctuation and grammar and get the great-grandkids’ names right. My brothers and I plan to run whatever version Dad approves.
In the past weeks, on the three-hour drive from my home to Dad’s, I’ve listened to multiple audiobooks. I’ve just finished Sally Rooney’s Intermezzo. Set in Dublin over four months in 2022, Rooney’s main characters are two brothers who are different as night and day. Their father died recently from cancer and they’re grieving his loss at the same time, but not together. On one hand, it’s a story that—at times—proceeds with the painful slowness of pulling off a Band-Aid. Despite the prolonged discomfort, I found myself engrossed, helpless to look away from what lay unhealed and oozing beneath. Brothers Ivan and Peter are so fully realized, and Rooney’s portrayals are so intimate that we cringe when they cringe. We hold our breath through many awkwardly squirmy exchanges. We observe pettiness, and the brothers butting heads, blurting out what they’ve been holding inside and stewing over. And then we see their regret.
For me, this resonates this week.
Rooney’s structure alternates chapters between Ivan and Peter and also switches between present action and backstory/interiority. It’s the fine balance that works. Instead of setting this story pre-cellphone, Rooney uses tech as a vehicle, with lots of cryptic texts, blocked numbers, and missed calls (that were really important). Instead of tech intruding on the narrative, it propels it forward.
How nice, I’ve thought, to possess Sally Rooney’s extraordinary gift of translating raw, nuanced emotion so succinctly into words. How nice. And how, I’ve wondered, does Sally do that? As writers, we want to know, because we all hope to cultivate the skills required to work that magic every time we want to. In multiple scenes, Rooney artfully plays out dialogue, to the point we’re thinking, oh, Peter, don’t say that to her and you could still apologize!
Some reviews of this novel call it overlong, or even “undercooked”. Some say it’s brilliant; some, self-indulgent. At 32, I think Rooney has the chops to write the book she wants to write, without aiming to please the masses.
Through this week with my own family, I’ve thought about Rooney’s gift for portraying emotion so plausibly. Our family has always been fairly restrained, emotionally, and perhaps more so since my mother died from cancer twenty-one years ago. Now; my father, my two brothers, and I are companionable and easy with each other. We don’t do fist fights or shouting, or block each other’s calls.
Like Sally Rooney’s grieving brothers in Intermezzo, we three siblings have been interacting on unfamiliar terrain this week, each using our own coping mechanisms and exploring our varied skill sets to move through this liminal state, here in our family home, at the pace his disease dictates. With just 24 hours notice, one sister-in-law used her managerial skills to fully schedule round-the-clock nurses, ongoing. Her powers of diplomacy have been invaluable. My other sister-in-law spreads positivity, brings homemade Bolognese, and gave Dad a good haircut from his bedside. My older brother brings groceries and repairs things around the house, and, along with my younger brother, has executed Dad’s wishes to get his personal affairs in good order. As professional financial advisers, they’re good at that stuff. As a former hospice volunteer, I’m dispenser of meds, vanilla custard maker, and acting hospice liaison.
It’s a strange nostalgia, sleeping in the bedroom I had when I lived here, in the late 1970s. Long gone are the lime green shag carpet and Marimekko towels I begged for at twelve. My eight-track stereo went years ago and this week, I took out the small, boxlike television that played VHS tapes, along with the Disney cassettes my mother played for her five granddaughters. Now, that little table holds my laptop.
I’d hoped to work on outlining my new novel this month, but real-life drama keeps getting in the way. Still and all, I’m grateful I can be here now. I’m grateful my father is at home, with round-the-clock nurses.
Yesterday afternoon about 4:30, the house suddenly emptied of visitors, cleaners, plumbers, mowers, and other family. For one blissfully quiet hour, it was just my father and me, with a nurse in the next room. Dad was alert and read my edited version of his own words in obituary form. He decided he wanted to thank his Friday men’s lunch group by name. He also said that as his obituary photo, he wants the hedcut newspaper portrait that ran on the front page of The Wall Street Journal in 1991, with an article about him. The portrait has that stippled, crosshatched woodcut effect; as if Dad’s face might have appeared on a piece of paper currency. For his eulogy, I’ve scoured my memories and asked my brothers for anecdotes I’ll be able to read to a memorial congregation without breaking down.
This intermezzo, before Dad’s final act, is a writer’s lesson in emotional interaction. It’s a character reveal. It’s a blend of backstory and present moments, with hints thrown in of what’s to come in future chapters. Pacing is everything.
[In honor of MN, Jr., December 4, 1928- November 28, 2024.]
Which novels have mirrored your life as you were reading them?
Liza Nash Taylor (she/her) is a late-blooming historical novelist and self-proclaimed empty nester with attitude. She was a 2018 Hawthornden International Fellow and received an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts the same year. Her work has appeared in Gargoyle Magazine; Deep South, and others. Her debut novel, ETIQUETTE FOR RUNAWAYS (Blackstone Publishing, 2020) was listed in Parade Magazine’s 30 Best Beach Reads of 2020 and Frolic’s 20 Best Books of Summer 2020. Her second novel, IN ALL GOOD FAITH, came out in August 2021, also from Blackstone.
A native Virginian, Liza lives in Keswick with her husband and dogs, in an old farmhouse which serves as a setting for her historical fiction.
Find out more at lizanashtaylor.com.
Liza, may his memory be a blessing.
Thanks, Anmarie.
Lovely
There’s such quiet beauty in this post, Liza. I’m so sorry for your loss.
Thank you, Therese.
What precious times. Thoughts are with you and beloved ones.
Lisa, thanks for reading and for your kind comment.
Thank you for sharing such intimate, painful moments with us. I’m so sorry for your loss but so filled with joy on your behalf that you had such a wise father.
Meg, thanks for your condolences.
Liza, this is one of the most personal, profound, and beautiful posts I’ve ever read here at Writer Unboxed. Thank you for capturing how we are our best — driven by simple acts of care and love — and for expressing the liminal state in the way that you have done. Sean and I just had a long conversation about that, how significant the liminal state is throughout the span of a life, the many ways it presents itself. It’s important, and you’ve captured it perfectly. Thank you for sharing your dear father with us. May he rest in peace, and may his memory be a gift that helps you and yours as you process his loss.
Aw, Therese. Thank you. I’m feeling the WU love today.
Beautiful and moving. Wishing you peace moving forward. As to your question, I lost a boyfriend back in the 90’s to suicide and found myself, many years later, reading H is for Hawk and saying yes, yes, yes.
Thanks for reading and commenting, Susan. What a terrible ordeal. I have yet to read H is for Hawk, but I think I need to.
Oh Liza, prayers ascending for your father and all your family. Thank you for sharing this precious time you had with your father and brothers. It is such a privilege to accompany the dying. Requiescat in pace, MN.
Thank you, Vijaya. I agree, it is a privilege.
Lisa–
Describing writing as “heartfelt” is often used casually, but your post is heartfelt and moving. All I can say by way of response is that the richness and depth of meaning you convey about your father and family touches me, an aging only child who has never known most of the pleasures and pains you describe. You have done your father and your family proud with language, and I thank you for sharing it with us.
Barry, thanks for sharing your experience, too.
Liza, thank you for this heartfelt and poignant post. I’m sorry for your loss.
Thanks, Chris.
Lisa, so beautiful as I sit with my brother who suffers from dementia. The love we have for family is like no other. Your words are comforting. Thank you.
Beth, I’m sorry for your trials, but glad you can be with your brother. Peace.
Liza, like so many others, I’m so sorry for your loss.
I’m not sure that what you’ve posted here today is an intermezzo, or that those months caring for your remarkable father was an intermezzo in your life, either. Your post reads like great writing should: the portrait of a distinct person, richly detailed, a period in that person’s life captured with a fine clarity–one that in this case is all the more poignant for its finality.
I want to read your father’s obituary. (Next post?) He wanted not only to celebrate his life, but to thank all who were part of it. How generous. How large in spirit. We should all be like that and not just in our final words, but in all our words. Like you have been today.
Your loss is sad but your post is beautiful. Ask me, it’s not an intermezzo. It’s the goal of writing in the first place, achieved. Thank you.
Donald,
Thank you so much. Your comments made me feel a little like I just recieved a Paul Hollywood handshake on The Great British Baking Show. Here is the obit, if the link transmits:
https://www.hdoliver.com/obituaries/Monroe-Nash-Jr?obId=33903573&fbclid=IwY2xjawHANltleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHVsikBztQhxtMTJNFTYv33AC7CUp8FFOgUZA1REio4DVPYAVKnKAG-6nBw_aem_Sf-_NsO7Jc4wfDohv8mOGA
This was such a beautiful and moving post. My thoughts are with you.
Thanks, Frances.
Dear Liza,
I had a very similar experience to yours when my father’s cancer had spread. He was living with me, and together we did his obituary which included his military service record. Then he gave me a list of who to notify and in what order, chose the picture to accompany his obituary, and prepared his military uniform to be buried in with the ribbons and medals.
But while that was all very useful and helpful when the time came, the most important thing he did for me was to help me emotionally prepare for his death. As hard as it was, it was a blessing for me to have that time with him right up until the end. It sounds like your experience was the same. My thoughts are with you.
Thanks, Nancy. It is such a privilege to be entrusted to carry out a loved ones final wishes. Thanks for reading and sharing your experience.
Dear Liza,
I also, am sorry for your loss. But grateful for your poignant and generous sharing of your “Intermezzo” and also your dad’s obituary.
Thank you.
Thank you, Lori.
What a lovely tribute to both the writing journey and your father. I was moved to tears and am so sorry for your loss.
What especially resonated was the way you all worked together. It is a gift families don’t always give each other, but I had the same experience when we lost our parents: they would have been proud of us.
Thanks, Alicia.
I started reading Roz Morris’ book “Ever Rest” just after my husband died, and it really helped me see things in perspective, especially regarding how sometimes people try to “own” the grief of others.
I don’t know that one, Davida, but I’ll have to look for it. Thanks.
Thanks for sharing this, Liza. I found it moving how you and your family are working together to navigate this last, hard chapter together, even as each of you processes the feelings involved in your own way. I’m sorry about your dad’s passing. What a beautiful gift it sounds like you all gave him at the end of his life.
Thank you, Tiffany.