Short Story / Memory of a Mother (Analysis)
Her hair is light years long and in the wind, her brown waves stick to the cracks in her smile. Even at low tide, our feet sink into the soft sand while we stay on the banks looking for sand dollars and sea glass. In pursuit of a hermit crab, I carelessly split a toe on a barnacled rock. My eyes tear from the stinging salt water and the sight of my blood, but she strokes my hair behind my ears and I forget.
“The salt water is healing it,” she says. And she kisses my forehead.
Time creeps by on feathered feet, and the moon silently pushes the sun from the sky. I clamp my eyes closed when her soft hand brushes the sticky sea sand from my face. She guides me away from the tired beach accompanied by the familiar summer wind. I sing her a silly song that she helps me make up as we go along and she tickles my neck. I am five years old. She is my mother and in the bliss of youth she is my world. I look at her and ask with serious concern if anyone has ever died from giggling. She laughs.
A year later the tumor appears. Astrocytoma, the doctor’s say, in the brain; malignant and very hard to treat.
She dies two years later.
And everyone stops laughing.
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Though beautifully done, this isn’t really a short story. More of an essay but nice. I’m moving right along in the narration and the flow is even and I get pulled up by the overexplanation, “I am five years old. She is my mother and in the bliss of youth she is my world” which I don’t think you need. After all, you have your title and I get it. The last line is good but I think you can come up with something even stronger “the laughter dies with her” or something along that line.
Still it is well done and something I’d be proud of. Good job.
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The writing is good but the story is a bit of a jolt (not in the best way) their walking on the beach and suddenly she’s dieing of a tumor. The transistion is awkward. First it’s a nice simple narrative, then suddenly we get a shot of information, (I’m a five year old boy) which doesn’t seem natural and in turn makes us feel we’ve been set up when we discover his mom dies. The result it not the emotional effect I think you were trying for.
There’s a lot of story between the discovery that he’s a five year old boy, I think you can be more subtle with this information, don’t rush it, we actually already have a pretty good idea it’s a young person, and the announcement of her tumor.
A little more subtlety and taking your time to tell the story will go a long way in this piece.
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