Alexandra Grabbe is the author of the new memoir Seeing Joy: A Story of Life, Death, and What Comes Next. She also has written the book The Nansen Factor. She lives in East Arlington, Massachusetts.
Q: What inspired you to write Seeing Joy?
A: When my mother became bedridden, I started blogging to inform family and friends of her welfare. The blog was called “By Bea’s Bedside.” To my surprise, strangers started following. A self-proclaimed “fan” suggested turning the blog into a book.
I had an agent in 2008, who submitted my manuscript to a dozen editors at the major publishing companies, but they all refused, unwilling to tackle the subject of death, which, at the time “did not sell.” One agent commented that the prose was too similar to a blog. Whoops! I had to fix that.
So, then the manuscript went through multiple revisions, with me distancing it from the blog format. At one point, I hired a developmental editor who suggested getting the reader out of the bedroom, so I started adding passages about my mom’s life before my birth, transforming the narrative into something far beyond what I had first imagined, more rewarding, more complex, more complete in its scope, and I created the subtitle, A Story of Life, Death, and What Comes Next.
Q: How would you describe the dynamic between you and your mother?
A: During my adolescence, Bea was the kind of mother who would swallow you whole if you weren’t careful. I must admit that it was a challenge being her daughter, although I loved her and she loved me. She was an intellectual and often I felt inferior. I resented the fact that she left Monday through Friday to work in an office in downtown D.C.
When I moved to Europe in my early 20s, she repeated what her therapist had suggested, that I had left America to put an ocean between us, which wasn’t true. I learned to tolerate such statements, but they did hurt.
I really had no idea what lay ahead when my husband Sven accompanied me back from Europe in 1997 to care for my parents. I had no experience as a caregiver. I simply loved them and wanted the best for them. Sven was able to retire from teaching and accompany me. My dad passed in 1999 at 97.
During the last seven months of my mother’s life, when she was 96, the dynamic between us shifted. Suddenly, she became the child, and I assumed the role of adult. I get emotional simply thinking about it now. It was such a privilege to spend time with her and experience her end-of-life.
Q: How was the book’s title chosen, and what does it signify for you?
A: One day, I bustled into my mom’s room for a diaper change and suddenly realized something unusual was taking place. She was in the middle of a conversation, talking to someone, but the bedroom was empty. Her gaze remained on the ceiling, where her visitors usually appeared. Her face radiated happiness. “I see joy,” she said then.
Seeing joy seemed like such an unusual concept that it remained with me when I searched for a new title for my revised manuscript which I had simply thought of as “By Bea’s Bedside” for 15 years. This new title opened up a whole new vista to the caregiving experience.
Q: What impact did it have on you to write the book, and what do you hope readers take away from it?
A: I hope readers realize that caring for an elderly parent can be incredibly rewarding. Circumstances do not always allow people to make this choice.
In my case, I had wanted to move back to the United States for many years. Sven was at the end of his career teaching history, so he was willing to accompany me. My parents had a big house in a marvelous place, Wellfleet on Cape Cod. I wanted to keep the house in the family, so that was my first motivation.
After my dad passed, my mom was still going strong, so Sven and I started a bed & breakfast in 2004. We could leave her alone for short periods until 2006 when bursitis of the knee sent her to the hospital. She failed at rehab, perhaps purposely, and became bedridden.
That was when the spirits of deceased friends and family started visiting. They came a lot. At first, I didn’t have a clue as to what was going on, so I did research.
I found similar experiences mentioned in a book called On the Threshold of the Unseen. “There are some remarkable instances where the dying person, before the moment of transition from earth, appears to see and recognize some of his deceased relatives or friends.”
Turns out there’s a modern name for this phenomenon. Hospice nurses call it “visioning.” The presence of my mother’s “invisible people” helped me understand that death is not something to fear.
I’m hoping readers will come away with the same message and also understand that what may seem like an impossible task – caring for an elderly parent – actually can be extremely rewarding.
Q: What are you working on now?
A: My WIP is historical fiction set in 865 Scandinavia. I’m fascinated by history and have done a lot of research on the period.
My protagonist is not a Viking out for plunder. Arne Perdersen is more of an Everyman. I wrote his story because too many novels set in 9th-century Scandinavia emphasize men of the same ilk as the Lindisfarne raiders of 793.
I wanted to create a love story with a gentle hero who follows a different path to show the men of America, who are apparently struggling today, that macho is not the only option. Peace-loving Arne chooses not to join the Heathen Army raiding England in 865.
His world is dramatically altered by his love for a woman, an older woman in fact. Tragically, they are separated, but he will keep a promise her made to her, returning 12 years later from faraway Constantinople to find her and claim their son.
Q: Anything else we should know?
A: The portrait on the cover of Seeing Joy is of my mother. It was painted when she was 25 by Russian émigré artist Sergei Soudeikine. People don’t always realize, so I like to point this out. The painting hung over her bed, so it gets discussed in the memoir. The Koehler Books designer Catherine Herold added the stars. For me, it’s the perfect cover!
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
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