Non-Celebrities Should Be the Ones Writing Books
/The Boston Herald
Two days before Christmas I logged on to AOL and there was the home screen reminding me that the nation is on high alert, because of a "possible grandiose terrorism attack." Directly underneath this, there were the "must have reads" for the holiday season. Now you'd think that the "top biographies" that we "must" read would enlighten us in some way because, God knows, we need meaning in our lives as well as a Sacagawea to help us through this place that we never thought we'd be. But these are the people whose biographies we are told not to miss: Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Ronald Reagan, Dale Earnhart Jr., Jennifer Lopez, Princess Diana and Britney Spears
I wonder how reading a biography of Britney Spears or Jacqueline Kennedy, about whom we already know too much, will help us make sense of the here and now?
I read Natalie Wood's biography years ago hoping to figure out why she married Robert Wagner not once but twice and I loved every word. But at the end of the day, how was I wiser? What had I learned that would stay with me during the tough times.
Non-celebrities are the ones who should be writing biographies. I met a woman last week who has six grown daughters. Her first is autistic and was born in the 1950s when few people even knew this word, when there were no special programs for special kids, when doctor after doctor recommended institutionalization.
She and her husband ignored the doctors and raised their daughter. What courage this took. How did they manage? This girl didn't go to school regularly until she was 15. What were the days like? What did her siblings do? What were the biggest challenges? And what would they have done differently?
"How many children do you have?" That's what we ask people. "Where do you live? What do you do?" Not, "What do you do that makes you happy? What do you do to get through a bad day?" We live on the surface, while the real stories, the truths we could learn from, remain hidden. My grandmother gave away her first-born son. Then she married his father and had three other sons until he left or maybe she threw him out. She raised these three boys alone. She survived the Depression, bread lines, World War II, in which two of her sons served. She likely survived a million other events and traumas I know nothing about. People's lives are like this, complex and full of contradictions. And yet here we all surface, human icebergs, while the greatest part of us remains concealed.
Last week in Israel, a brother and sister met for the first time in 60 years. Each believed the other had been killed in the Holocaust. Shilon is 78, and Shoshana November is 73. Born in Poland, they have lived for 45 years just a 90-minute drive apart. But they never knew until last week when an American cousin checked the records kept at the Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem. She survived the death camps. He survived a stint in the Soviet army. This is an important story. How do you lose everything and everyone you love and go on?
I get a Christmas card every year from the Morrises. They have three children - Imani, Malik and Zakiya. Malik was born with countless things wrong with him. But they smile anyway - every year on their card and every day of their lives. They should write a book about loving life even when if seems as if life doesn't love you.
Reading about the surface lives of celebrities only reinforces aloneness. The stories that regular people keep within them are the ones that can melt ice and are the ones that need to be told.
