A New Memoir from Carol Burnett

This Diva of evening comedy has written a memoir of her and her late daughter called, Carrie and Me. Carrie Hamilton, her daughter, died of cancer several years ago at only 38. We wish her luck with this book, and acknowledge the courage it took to write it. I would like to write a memoir of my and my mother, and include much of the books she wrote for me and as a memoir of her time living in Greece during WWII under the fascists and Nazis. My little boy and I did a narrative for Deb Bowen's a Book by Me, but it has not been created yet for that organizaiton, which asks children to write books about local Holocaust survivors and those who sufferred under the Nazis. We call ours Clara and the War. I have also started Death and Dying by Elizabeth Kubler Ross. Like everyone, I seek answers for why those I love have been taken, and sometimes, in the case of my Mom, so suddenly no one could have foreseen it. There is no closure for that kind of loss, only ways of trying to deal with it. As Chaucer said in far more eloquent words, this time of year can be the cruelest. Death is hard to take when the earth is recreating itself. My memories of this time of year involve my Mother and me on Easter break, going to the annual Antique Show by the Women's Club, buying flowers and bulbs, walking our dog Smokey, or before him, Killer, a little Scotty mix. We would sit outside sometimes, and drive to McDonalds for cokes. We loved hitting sales and the annual miniatture show where we bought kits of Ethel Hicks' Angel Children miniature dolls. We loved to go to lunch when we had a day off, and some of our favorite restaurants are gone, too, Velies, Harrolds on the Rock, The Italian Village. We cooked for Easter, and made turkey, usually. We made Easter baskets for each other, and dyed and decorated eggs. We brought the egg collection, Czech, Amana, Ukranian, blood Red orthodox eggs with a gold cross, dolls with egg heads, my own watercolor designs, sugar eggs, African stone eggs, Chinese, wooden, wax, goose eggs made into shadow boxes or jewel boxes, one heirloom that belonged to my Uncle George, with a miniature book and chalice inside. My Uncle Tom fixed it after it was crushed by accident. They, and mymother, are all gone, now. So, in this time of year when life begins again, many of us, including Carol Burnett, remember where it began, and ended. For us, our memories make them selves known, blossoming again like flowers.