The Inside Story By Laura J. Oliver

The first time my mother brought my father home to the farm, my grandmother said of this charming college classmate in the yellow sportscar, “He’s either the worst thing that ever happened to you or the best.”

“He was both,” my mother confided from the far side of that marriage.

Here’s what I learned from my dad:

The inability to breathe when you fall from the top of the swing set is called “Having the wind knocked out of you.”

To keep from spilling an overfilled cup of coffee you are carrying to someone across the room, do the counterintuitive thing: run with it.

To take the hook out of a sunny’s mouth, stroke its fins toward its tail.

Put sand on a sea nettle sting and baking soda on a bee sting

If you find a spider in the wood pile, look for a red dot on its belly. The bite of a black widow can kill you.

But daddy longlegs don’t bite.

Mud daubers don’t sting.

Walnut leaves under the rugs repel the dog’s fleas, and you can teach a crow to talk.

Pick up a crab where his back flipper hinges to the shell.

Volkswagen Beetles feature the trunk in the front.

I learned very little else, but after he died, Dad taught me that neither life nor love end, arguably one of the best things that ever happened to me.

*****

My mother taught me how to tie off a sewing needle and hem a skirt.

To grease a cookie sheet and crack an egg.

To value education.

That I’m a Pisces, Sagittarius rising.

That vinegar will make my hair shine.

That supper must include meat, a vegetable, a starch, and flowers on the table.

That books are to life what dessert is to dinner.

To brighten the house with lights on rainy days.

To do things that are scary—to build houses for the poor in Appalachia with a group of teenagers you don’t know, audition for a play when your knees are shaking. Speak up when you’re scared, sing when you’re terrified, protect the vulnerable.

To believe in miracles.

To read when you are lonely, write when you’re confused.

Write when you’re in awe.

(Awe is grateful with a mix of beautiful.)

When you are empty, give something away.

To make all birthday cakes from scratch and Halloween costumes by hand.

That there is power in prayer and voting is a privilege.

To recognize the metaphor in virtually everything.

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My oldest sister taught me that a boy should think you are beautiful but not know why.

That listening is an act of generosity.

My middle sister taught me that the Beatles were a band

That hip huggers were cool

And a secret code to knock on the wall between our bedrooms at night. Pay attention. You will need to know this: One knock meant yes, two meant no, three meant I love you, four meant I hate you, and five meant come into my room.

*****

Somebody taught me that I think too much, talk too much, have no sense of direction but have a high pain tolerance, and promptly respond but seldom initiate.

Almost everything I think about myself, I absorbed from someone else. I’m still learning what has value and what to put in the discard pile.

*****

What’s your story, and who told it to you? You really need to know this because if you repeat the story you were told about you long enough, your story becomes the teller of you.

So, here’s what I’ve learned about you. (Check for accuracy.)

You like to read.

You are quick to laugh. (I love that about you. It’s my favorite thing.)

You want to love; it’s your nature. You’re very smart, and because you are smart, you are trying not to despair.

You fear for those you love and would do anything for your children.

You really want to believe there is no reason to be afraid.

You are a little uncertain of your great-grandparents’ names.

You have stories to tell, and you think it would be awesome if others could hear them.

You know, or suspect, you have been touched by grace.

You want to be remembered, but if you are only immortalized in the way your children show up in this world, or the abiding passion with which they love their own children, that’s enough. 

And you will be sad to leave this life not because you think this is all there is but because that’s how you will say to the world, “This was beautiful, and it mattered.”

You believe in life everlasting more than you don’t, or you wouldn’t be here.

You are hoping I will convince you, and I’m trying.

Listen closely.

(Three knocks.)

******

Laura J. Oliver is an award-winning developmental book editor and writing coach, who has taught writing at the University of Maryland and St. John’s College. She is the author of The Story Within (Penguin Random House). Co-creator of The Writing Intensive at St. John’s College, she is the recipient of a Maryland State Arts Council Individual Artist Award in Fiction, an Anne Arundel County Arts Council Literary Arts Award winner, a two-time Glimmer Train Short Fiction finalist, and her work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Her website can be found here.