My relationship with my mother was the greatest relationship of my life. I knew it when it was happening. And both my first and second husbands knew it. I always said my mother was the woman I wanted to grow up to be. She would say: “Just grow up.”
When my mother died suddenly and unexpectedly in her 70s after knee replacement surgery, all I wanted was more time with her. I’ve never been a crier, but every day, for weeks, I held my dog in my arms and wept. The dog hated water, but she would let me hold her and pet her increasingly damp fur. Then one day, I realized it was the first day I hadn’t cried.
There was no let-up in my intense grief, however.
From the time I was a teenager away at summer camp, I exchanged letters with my mother every week. This continued in college and graduate school and when I landed a job at The Baltimore Sun.
I had kept all of my mother’s letters, and I started re-reading them, hoping they would bring at least part of her back to me. I never got very far. It was too painful. But her voice was in each letter — her humor, her wisdom, and her unconditional love.
What if I could share her voice with other people — people who didn’t even know my mother? And what if I could do it by capturing, not her words, but her spirit in newly created letters? I could bring her back in the room with me and with readers for whom her unbridled imagination might help pave a path through the deep chasms of grief.
My debut novel, Please Write, chronicles the correspondence between a recently widowed Cleveland artist and two dogs: Winslow, a noble Boston Terrier, and Zippy, a mixed-breed puppy rescued off the streets of Baltimore. The letters change and enrich the lives of the correspondents, as well as that of the dogs’ owner, a harried journalist whose life is unraveling.
Pre-publication responses from experts in the field of grief and loss suggest that I achieved this goal. Diane Cole, author of the New York Times notable book, After Great Pain: A New Life Emerges, wrote: “Rousuck threads her tale with charm and hope and a touch of whimsy, reminding us that even in the most difficult situations, laughter is an essential antidote to worry. For comfort and companionship, look no further than the adorable Zippy, the rescue dog who helps rescue her human owner from the profound sadness of grief.”
And Eliza Feller, a funeral director at Baltimore’s Sol Levinson & Bros., commented: “Grief comes in many forms as we make our way through life. Please Write reminds us that comfort and healing do, too. Lifting us up and touching our hearts through the canine voices of exuberant Zippy and staid Winslow, this dog’s-eye-view takes us on a sometimes-madcap journey of growth and understanding.”
I took a few copies of Please Write to a reunion that my college class held recently in Washington D.C. A classmate emailed me afterward, “I read Please Write on the plane home. Luckily I couldn’t quite finish it because I was crying really hard by the end. The dogs were such charming characters. I could totally imagine them and also see you in both. Pamela [the artist’s daughter] had such a sad life and kept her spirits up with her dogs. Her mother was the most wonderful person. I loved her deeply. She made me miss my own mother, whom I think of all the time. I wish my mother could read this. She would have gone on and on about how much she loved the story. Thank you for writing it.”
Knowing that my words are indeed helping others deal with grief is heartwarming and gratifying. Bancroft Press, the publisher of Please Write, markets the book as “Fiction/Humor/Pets/Self-Help.” It isn’t a “how-to” book, however. Although Winslow and Zippy type their letters, Please Write won’t teach your dog to conquer the keyboard.
Instead, Please Write suggests that if you set your mind free, the best of times past might eventually overtake the worst of present grief. So hug your dog or cat or rabbit or, whatever comfort creature you choose; you might be surprised by the solace you find. You might even find yourself sharing a memory of something wonderful from years ago, a memory that comes alive again in the retelling.
About J. Wynn Rousuck
Ms. Rousuck, author of Please Write, (available Nov 7th, 2023).
She has been reviewing theater for Baltimore’s NPR affiliate WYPR since 2007. Prior to that, she was the longtime theater critic for The Baltimore Sun, where she reviewed more than 3,000 plays over the course of 23 years. Please Write (Nov. 7) is her first novel.
Her feature coverage for The Sun included a comprehensive series chronicling the development of the Tony Award-winning musical, Hairspray. Her interviews have been published in Hairspray: The Roots and Conversations with Neil Simon. Other non-fiction has appeared in magazines ranging from Dog World to American Theatre. Her short stories have been honored by Creative Loafing of Tampa’s Fiction Contest (2013 and 2017) and Atticus Review’s From Here competition (2014).
A former member of the Artistic Advisory Committee of Young Audiences of Maryland, Rousuck was a faculty member at the Eugene O’Neill Theatre Center’s National Critics Institute for more than two decades. She has also taught at Goucher College and at various programs at Johns Hopkins University.
Rousuck is a former National Endowment for Humanities Journalism Fellow and a visiting student at Brown University under the mentorship of Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright, Paula Vogel.
Please Write is part of her family heritage: Her father was a dog judge, and his oldest brother wrote one of the first books about Boston Terriers, a breed that figures prominently in her novel.
Rousuck lives in Baltimore with her husband Alan Fink and their Boston Terrier, Juno.
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