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A Joyful Noise

memory

Throwback Thursday: My Brother Roger (1943-2015)

October 29, 2015 by Melodye Shore

We didn’t stay in any one place for long, nor did we ever sit for family portraits. And while revival organizers sometimes took candid snapshots of my father’s fiery sermons and the like, most of those got pitched overboard to make room for an ever-expanding family. So by the time my siblings and I reached adulthood, only a handful of personal photographs remained.

Some wayward pictures were eventually returned by my father’s associates. Some found their way ‘home’ when I reached out to estranged family members. My sister Sheryll, who shares my interest in personal genealogy, tracked down quite a few photographs on her own. Secrets oftentimes stay buried, but we encouraged more than a few hoarders to share their private stash. And as it turned out, I retrieved a good number of images by climbing into my “Nancy Drew” roadster and following my father’s tire ruts down the Sawdust Trail.

When Roger passed away this month, I felt a hollowness in the places where his voice once reverberated. So precious–then and in hindsight–the times we shared in communion, recounting the highlights of our individual and shared stories. Such treasures, the memories and pictures we’ve managed to archive, for ourselves and future generations. This doesn’t seem to me the appropriate place to write my brother’s obituary, but I’ve assembled a small number of images that bear witness to his life.

To my brothers and sisters, a love offering. That’s already printed on the dedication page of my memoir–in my mind’s eye, at least. Same with the pictures of Roger that you see here.

Roger Baby

Roger Suva was born in Detroit, Michigan in 1943.

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Roger’s standing next to the family dog, facing my father, who has my oldest sister Coral on his lap. A candid (?) snapshot, taken in front of my father’s revival tent in Johnson City, Tennessee.

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My brother Roger’s upper elementary school picture, taken the year I was born.

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A front-porch respite from the cramped back seat of our family car, the summer before his senior year in high school.

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Roger the Bookworm, shortly after college graduation (Wheaton Bible College, in Illinois).

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A Christmas hug from his older daughter, Esther.

Roger and Heather

Hanging out on the front porch with Heather, his younger daughter (Anaheim, California).

1986 04 Jake and Darlene, Disneyland, Desert_20140413_0004

An outdoor enthusiast with an irrepressible wanderlust, Roger’s pictured here in Joshua Tree, watching for Halley’s Comet.

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A vegetarian before it was fashionable, Roger espoused strong opinions about many things.

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We shared a complicated story, and a tangled family tree. Here, Roger’s (re)introducing me to Cliff, whom I’d met on a couple of other occasions but hadn’t yet realized was my brother.

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The VW bus that Roger called home for several years before he died.

Posted in: family, genealogy, Pentecostal Tent Revivals, revival meetings, TBT, Throwback Thursday Tagged: can i get a witness, memoir, memory, nancy drew, Roger, tent revival, throwback thursday

Throwback Thursday: Rusty Trucks at the End of the Road

October 23, 2015 by Melodye Shore

Two ice cream trucks, at rakish angles.

“Turkey in the Straw,” long since silenced.

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Once upon a more simple time, they rumbled through quiet neighborhoods in rural Massachusetts, flanked on all sides by kids of all ages.

Legs churned, arms waved. Dimes glinted in the afternoon sunshine.

“Snow Cones, Push-up Pops, Creamsicles…come and get yours!”

 

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A single row of barbed wire runs along the outside edges of the pasture where these utilitarian vehicles came to rest. They are nested, now, in tangles of ivy.

Hard to believe that the rust-covered metal was once a glossy white. The wiper blades are arthritic; the headlights, bleary.

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Shredded tires are stashed on the floor, and the windows are smeared with nature’s residue.

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Tired sentries, standing guard over the happy moments they once delivered:

Sweet frozen treats on hot summer days, tucked behind decorated metal awnings.

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Their time has clearly come and gone.

And yet…

At the end of an old gravel road, within the loose confines of a pasture, someone’s mowed the grass around these time machines.

Their engines are long gone, and their beauty has long since faded. But maybe, just maybe– if we squint our eyes, just a little, and tilt our heads just so–nostalgia will carry us back to those blue-sky moments of our childhood.

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Posted in: Ice cream trucks, joy, New England, nostalgia, Photography, TBT, Throwback Thursday, travel, writing Tagged: bleary headlights, covered with vines, creamsicles, hadley, hadley massachusetts, ice cream truck, memory, photography, push-up pops, rusted paint, rusty truck, snow cones, throwback thursday, turkey in the straw

Remembering Heidi on her birthday

June 12, 2012 by Melodye Shore

Some people live organized, uncluttered lives. Me, I’m a messy, mixed-media kind of girl. I use every crayon in the Crayola box, and I’m not afraid to color outside the lines–most of the time, anyway. But there’s a certain comfort that comes of boundaries, of brushing preset colors into numbered spaces on a printed canvas.

And so it was with my sister Heidi, the impish little girl who eventually learned to play it safe. She had a wild streak in her, and she told whoppers stories like no one’s business. But life stripped away much of her sass, mostly before she reached adulthood. Over the course of many years, Multiple Sclerosis ravaged her limbs and organs. She was first confined to a wheelchair, and then a hospital bed with side rails. She could have given up, but no. Radio tuned to Christian broadcasts, brushes clenched between palsied fingers, Heidi propped herself up and painted.  

To a trained artist, Paint By Number sets might seem a little tacky.  To an unfettered soul, they’re probably too restricting. But for someone as isolated as Heidi was–surrounded by colorless walls in a sterile bedroom–they afford a creative outlet. Wings, if you will. They encouraged her to dream about places she’d never seen and probably never would. They gave her a voice, one that told the outside world: “I am here, I am capable, I am.

It's Heidi's birthday today, and I find myself staring at this painting (a gift she gave me just last summer), find myself thinking about why it is that I haven't framed it yet. It’s as if, in doing so, I’d be placing boundaries around the artist herself…around Heidi, the mischievous little girl who doesn’t have to color inside the lines, ever again.

Posted in: Uncategorized Tagged: heidi, memoir, memory, paint by numbers

DEAR BULLY: A memorable experience

March 25, 2011 by Melodye Shore

Memoirists are sometimes asked how it is that we’re able to recall, with sensory details, our long-ago experiences. Rightly so, and here I must confess: While I clearly remember many childhood experiences, I sometimes lose track of things that happened a few months days minutes ago! (What was it that brought me downstairs just now? And hmmm, I seem to have misplaced my coffee cup again!) 

Without wading into the psycho-pathology (I’m certainly no expert), I’d venture to say that most long-term memories are shaped by these circumstances:

  1. Emotional Impact. The event is so harrowing…so powerful and gritty that it’s permanently sandblasted into your brain. (Think: 9/11, or the Civil Rights protests of the 60s.)
  2. Repetition & reinforcement. I have lots of siblings, with whom my own story intersects. We bore witness to the same events, and have talked about them many times since. Sure, we might quarrel about minor details. But when it comes to the underlying truths, we’re usually on the same page.
  3. Sensory Impressions. Memories are sometimes paired with physical sensations (aromas, sights and sounds, touch and taste), which help serve as triggers for later recall.  (Rose-fragranced hand lotion, for instance, reminds me of my Nana, as do dandelion puffs and crocheted afghans.) 
  4. Wish fulfillment. The experience is positive, and somehow related to your wildest aspirations and your most fervent dreams. (Who among us can’t remember their first kiss?)

Now to a more recent example: I’ll always remember the exact moment I learned that my personal essay, Luz, was going to be published in DEAR BULLY: 70 Authors Tell Their Stories. I was checking my email– a steaming mug of vanilla-nut coffee in hand–when the good news arrived in my inbox. And lord knows, I’ve repeated the story many times over since then. Enough so that I’m willing to bet that friends and family have memorized it, word for word. 

More grist for the memory mill: DEAR BULLY was featured in the February issue of Glamour magazine. And this past Monday, we got our pages for final proofing. LOL, I couldn’t edit the thing to save my life! Instead, I found myself staring at the formatted pages, a silly grin plastered across my face. Seeing the dimensions of the book itself…the typeface, the page numbers..whoa, unforgettable! The reality (the magic!) is finally hitting home.

And then today, we received an updated publication date (Aug 23, 2011), table of contents, and book cover. And even though they’ve already created an indelible impression in my own mind, I decided to post them here. Because I suspect I’m not the only contributor who’s hoping (and perhaps praying) that this anthology will shower its eventual audience with love and light, hope and joy. 
 


TABLE OF CONTENTS

Dear Bully

Dear Bully by Laurie Faria Stolarz
Love Letter to My Bully by Tonya Hurley
Dear Audrey by Courtney Sheinmel
Slammed by Marlene Perez
My Apology by Marina Cohen
Dear Samantha by Kieran Scott 
 

Just Kidding

Stench by Jon Scieszka
What I Wanted to Tell You by Melissa Schorr
Subtle Bullying by Rachel Vail

Hiding Me by R. A. Nelson
Midsummer’s Nightmare by Holly Cupala
BFFBOTT.COM by Lisa McMann
The Innocent Bully by Linda Gerber
The Secret by Heather Brewer
The Funny Guy by R. L. Stine 
 

Survival

A List by Micol Ostow
There’s a Light by Saundra Mitchell
The Soundtrack to My Survival by Stephanie Kuehnert
If Mean Froze by Carrie Jones
Abuse by Lucienne Diver
The Boy Who Won’t Leave Me Alone by A. S. King
That Deep Alone by Lise Haines
break my heart by Megan Kelley Hall
End of the World by Jessica Brody
Girl Wars by Crissa-Jean Chappell
The Curtain by Deborah Kerbel
 

Regret

The Eulogy of Ivy O’Conner by Sophie Jordan
Regret by Lisa Yee
Karen by Nancy Werlin
Surviving Alfalfa by Teri Brown
When I Was a Bully, Too by Melissa Walker
Carol by Amy Koss
Never Shut Up by Kiersten White
The Day I Followed by Eric Luper 
 

Thank You, Friends

The Alphabet by Laura Kasischke
They Made Me Do It and I’m Sorry by Cecil Castellucci
Simplehero by Debbie Rigaud
Isolation by Cynthia Leitich Smith
Luz by Melodye Shore [Meep! That’s me!]
Dear Caroline from Canada by Carrie Ryan
The Blue-Eyed Girl by Jocelyn Maeve Kelley
Frenemies Are Not Friends by Michelle Zink
 

Insight

The Other Side by Nancy Holder 
Can We Make This Letter Disappear? by Sara Bennett Wealer
Bully on the Ledge by Kurtis Scaletta
Informed Consent by Lara Zeises
Silent All These Years by Alyson Noël 
Now and Then by Aprilynne Pike
Strangers on a Street by Diana Rodriguez Wallach
Objects in Mirror are More Complex Than They Appear by Lauren Oliver
 

Speak

Levels by Tanya Lee Stone
Slivers of Purple Paper by Cyn Balog
The Sound of Silence by Claudia Gabel
Starship Suburbia by Maryrose Wood
Kicking Stones at the Sun by Jo Knowles
Memory Videos by Nancy Garden
Finding Light in the Darkness by Lisa Schroeder

 

Write It

The Sandwich Fight by Steven Wedel

Fearless by Jeannine Garsee
Without Armor by Daniel Waters
The Seed by Lauren Kate
 

It Gets Better

Now by Amy Reed
Standing Tall by Dawn Metcalf
The Superdork of the Fifth-Grade Class of 1989 by Kristin Harmel
“Who Gives the Popular People Power? Who???” by Megan McCafferty
“That Kid” by Janni Lee Simner
This Is Me by Erin Dionne
Bullies for Me by Mo Willems
To Carolyn Mackler, From Elizabeth in IL
Dear Elizabeth by Carolyn Mackler
 

Resources for Teens
Resources for Educators and Parents  

Contributors 

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Posted in: Uncategorized Tagged: dear bully, glamour magazine, memory, publishing news

In the rear view mirror

April 7, 2010 by Melodye Shore

I’m working on a chapter in which we traveled through the Mojave desert. In the blazing heat of summer. Seven of us–with all our earthly possessions–crammed ourselves into a family-sized sedan and headed out to God Knows Where.  

Funny, how our mind cordons off certain experiences, while granting us full access to others. Why, for instance, did I not realize at the time (but remembered later) that one of my brothers stayed behind with Nana?

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Here, some random pictures from last weekend’s hike in the desert.  Freak show or beauty pageant? You decide.

Posted in: Uncategorized Tagged: desert, memoir, memory, revisions

A Christmas memory (and prayer)

December 25, 2008 by Melodye Shore

Ave Maria is an achingly beautiful song with many variations. This one’s composed by Bach, I believe, and is sung by one of the Celtic Women. Here’s another of my favorite renditions, as performed by Josh Groban.

 

When I was thirteen, my friend Luz invited me to attend Christmas Eve mass with her, and over my father’s objections, I accepted. The Catholic service was wholly unfamiliar to me, the daughter of a Pentecostal tent preacher, but Luz did her best to explain the rituals and their symbolism. At some point the choir sang Ave Maria, in Latin. Luz handed me an English translation, but as it turned out, I didn’t really need it. 

 

Hail, Mary, full of grace. Flickering candles illuminated a statue of a mother nuzzling her newborn baby. Blessed are you, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb. Though I was listening to that song for the very first time, my heart understood what my ears could not.

 

To this day, I can’t listen to Ave Maria without tears. No matter what our religious beliefs, I think we all yearn for the blessings that come of being swaddled in the protective arms of a loving mother.

 

May your holidays be merry and bright, and may all your days be filled with peace and unconditional love.

Posted in: Uncategorized Tagged: ave maria, celtic woman, memory, mother

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