If You Knew Suzy, Like I Knew…

Katherine Rosman's book, If You Knew Suzy, has that affect on you. The affect you hope to have after you've spent your valuable time reading a book. Staying up late at night, exhausted, turning pages…and then YES! I know what you mean…

Rosman's book is a memoir that covers a daughter's journey of exploration into her mother's life, following her mother's death. As a Wall Street Journal reporter, Rosman puts her unique journalistic skill to the test in uncovering who her mother was as a person, beyond who she knew her to be as a mother. 

And what she proves beyond any doubt is that it's difficult for any one person to ever really know another individual.

I've always believed that books pick you at the right time. Just when you need a love story, here comes Sense and Sensibility. In a similar vein, If You Knew Suzy came to me…

You see, three weeks ago, my uncle passed away from cancer, the same affliction that took Suzy's mother. My uncle was young, only 65. And he wasn't a distant uncle. He lived in town, with my mom and stepfather, where he had been for the past, gosh, 15 years on and off? We were close. I still feel a heaviness from his absence. I still expect him to be there, when I walk through my mom's door.

Here are some interesting factoids about my uncle: Having come of age in the 1960's, he was associated to the Merry Pranksters. He shared great stories about Janis Joplin and told me about the time he and Jerry Garcia were so high, that the group of friends they were with dropped them off at some random apartment in San Francisco, where they proceeded to sober up over the next several days. He studied Easter Religion, he could contort his body into yoga poses teenagers would envy, he studied the I Ching and constantly flattered me that my readings were uber powerful.

He was a great man. I miss him. But like Suzy, I felt the instinct to know him better, once he had passed.

I didn't spend the last day of his life with him; I wanted that to be reserved for my cousin, his daughter, and my mother, his sister. But I spent a good deal of time with him over the last month of his life, up until two days before his death. I sat with him, those last days, with a thousand questions at the tip of my tongue. Suddenly, the time we had spent together, my entire life, didn't seem enough. I felt ashamed. How close are we really? 

All of us…how close are we? 

How much do we know about each other? The important things, not just the stories like Janis Joplin and Jerry Garcia. When I die, I want people to know me….really know me. But I have to admit that while I sat there with my uncle on his last days, I felt uncomfortable. A thousand questions at the tip of my tongue, and I felt too uncomfortable to ask a single one.

I applaud Suzy for further exploring a relationship of closeness. Knowing myself, knowing how much I love the people closest to me, I realize these people I love…they only know a portion of who I know myself to be. And more than anything, when I am gone, what I would most want is to be known.

Isn't that what we all want?

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Disclosure: I received a free copy of this book as part of the From Left to Write book club. – The Twitter hashtag
for the From Left to Write book club is #left2write. Follow From Left
to Write at @fromleft2write.

Tagged as: book review, From Left to Write, If You Knew Suzy, Katherine Rosman