I Should Have Made a Video - Dr. Ed Iannuccilli

Monday, February 20, 2023

Dr. Ed Iannuccilli, Contributor

 

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Dr. Ed Iannuccilli, columnist

There are times when you wish you had another chance at something. I wish I had taken a video of my mother.

Some years ago, I gave her a book with a list of questions: What is your first memory, favorite toy, first school, favorite dress, first boyfriend, how did you meet Dad, etc.? And she wrote and wrote, filling the book with grist for many stories to come. My mother never punctuated a sentence, so I have pages of one-sentence recollections. I wonder how reading Moby Dick might be if Melville wrote it in one unpunctuated sentence.

A chorus of memories poured forth like lava from her pen. Her handwriting was Palmer-generated, marvelous, and readable. At any point anywhere in the thesis, she would dive in with a bunch of Xs and Os as in XOXOXO, followed by “Would you believe I love you?” That was Mom’s writing prowess and thought process.

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Grammar notwithstanding, what she wrote was the story of her life. The record of her journey gave me pause. To read it is fun and enlightening, but I could, and should, have done more. I should have made a video of her answering those questions. My guess is that shortly after she sat before the camera and started chatting, she would have forgotten it was there.

If you knew my mother, you would soon realize that she had a thin veil and might say anything. Call it naivete, call it cute, call it calculated (my call), it was there, and in no way could it be captured in the written word. But we could have captured it in the video. Why?

Because a life story is a personal, intimate, active, realistic, living portrait of a witness. It is specific. From the heart. Sure, her writing was from the heart, and the Xs and Os are testimony to it, but the video would make it certain.

We would have seen the nonverbal; her wave, her stylish wardrobe, her tone, her body language as she made a push-away arc with the back of her hand and curled fingers when she dismissed you with a “Get off.” We would have seen her reach into her handbag with her never-ending stash as she charmed, “C’mon, C’mon, nobody doesn’t like candy.” Or her favorite, “Would you believe I love you?”

A video would have documented a broad brush of her life broken into personal bits, then welded together with a bunch of . . .yep, you guessed, verbal Xs and Os.

We would have captured the dining room table and chairs, or those intimate wall hangings, which would further strengthen the mood. We would have seen her on her favorite sofa where she watched her “shows.”

We would have captured a living legend. . .  visible, moving, a palpable gleam of an era.

A first-person recollection captured on video animates and amplifies reality. Make that video of your loved one when you have the chance. You won’t regret it.

Dr. Ed Iannuccilli is the author of three popular memoirs, “Growing up Italian; Grandfather’s Fig Tree and Other Stories”, “What Ever Happened to Sunday Dinner” and “My Story Continues: From Neighborhood to Junior High.”  NOW, he has written his fourth book "A Whole Bunch of 500 Word Stories."

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