Lisa Manterfield

  • Home
  • Books
    • The Smallest Thing
    • A Strange Companion
    • Shorts
    • Non-Fiction
  • Podcast
  • For Writers
  • About
  • Contact

September 18, 2017 - Lisa Manterfield Leave a Comment

When Tragedy Strikes, Supporting Characters Suffer Too

When Tragedy Strikes, Supporting Characters Suffer Too by Lisa Manterfield -lisamanterfield.com

Over the past couple of weeks, the threat of tragedy has set many people on edge. First Harvey swept into Texas, then Irma battered the Caribbean and headed for Florida. Meanwhile, Jose and Katia built, bringing more uncertainty of what they would become or where they would go.

People in the direct path of the storm faced the very real possibility of tragedy. They stood to lose their homes, livelihoods, pets, and even their lives. Many were called upon to tap into reserves of strength and courage to get through a situation for which they had little time to prepare.

Meanwhile, many of us outside the danger zone could only watch and wait. Although I didn’t have anyone close to me directly affected by the storms, my social media feeds were full of posts from friends who did have loved ones in danger. Lots of people were afraid of what might happen, but felt powerless to do anything about it. That kind of stress can have a huge emotional toll.

I thought a lot about the effects of powerlessness while writing The Smallest Thing. On the pages of the main story, Em finds herself stuck in the middle of an unimaginable tragedy that she is completely unprepared to handle. She does what any of us would do, which is to figure out how to survive. She doesn’t always make the best choices, especially at first. She has no role models or experience to call upon, but she does what she has to, and then she does what she needs to do. She finds her inner strength and a side of herself she never knew existed. And while she thinks she is powerless, she finds ways to take action.

Meanwhile, in the fictional world beyond the book, Em’s mother and little sister Alice experience the powerlessness that many of us felt last week as Hurricane Irma barreled towards our loved ones. Although their story isn’t told in the book, I’ve imagined them watching helplessly as Em and her father fought for survival.

I imagined that Em’s mother, like many us last week, would carry enormous guilt that she had gone to visit her sister and so had avoided being swept up in the quarantine. She’d feel helpless because there would be nothing she could do to protect her loved ones. She’d be terrified and probably frustrated that she didn’t know, at every second of the day, what was happening to them. She’d have moments of fury when others judged her actions or those of her loved ones, without full knowledge of the situation (hello, social media haters) and perhaps relief when one kind person asked how her family was doing and how she was holding up.

In fiction, and in our real-world tragedies, the stories of the supporting characters aren’t generally the ones that keep us riveted. But if you were a supporting character in the recent news headlines, you know, like Em’s mother, that you have your own story, too.

Filed Under: The Story Behind the Story Tagged With: Author, book, death, Eyam, fiction, grief, Hurricane Harvey, Hurricane Irma, loss, love, parent, plague, story, The Smallest Thing, YA, young adult Leave a Comment

May 15, 2017 - Lisa Manterfield 2 Comments

Weird Things That Happen When Someone You Love Dies

Weird Things That Happen When Someone You Love Dies by Lisa Manterfield -lisamanterfield.com

I was 15 when my dad died suddenly and unexpectedly. None of us is ever prepared for this kind of loss, and I was no exception, but I was surprised by some of the strange experiences that came along with grief. Only much later did I understand that almost anything extraordinary is “normal” when it comes to grief. Here are a few weird things that happened to me:

Every time the phone rings, you’re sure it will be them

It takes the brain a long time to process the idea that someone who has been there since the moment of your birth is suddenly gone. Every time the phone rang or there was an unexpected knock at the door, my first thought was always, “Oh, it’s my dad.” My adrenaline would start flowing and it would take several seconds for my grief-addled brain to catch up and realize that it couldn’t possibly be him.

The experience was worsened when, on the day of my dad’s funeral, I answered the door to find him standing there. It took me a lot longer than a few seconds to realize that the man on the doorstep was my dad’s younger brother, who’d I never met in person and who happened to bear an uncanny resemblance.

It’s a wonder the shock didn’t kill me.

Flippant expressions sting like hell

And speaking of flippant expressions like “It’s a wonder the shock didn’t kill me”, only when someone you love dies do you realize how often people use death-related expressions in daily life. “Don’t have a stroke”, “The good die young”, and “It’s like a cancer” all take on a different meaning when they happen to your loved one. “I almost had a heart attack” was an expression used often by many of my friends, but it stung like hell to hear it after my dad actually did have one.

Random items that belonged to your loved one suddenly take on new meaning

It’s been over 30 years since my dad’s death and I still have the travel alarm clock he woke up to every morning. It doesn’t work and I don’t even keep it on display, but I will never part with it. Same goes for the monogrammed handkerchiefs into which he always blew his nose. My dad won trophies for running and was an avid gardener, but it’s the clock and the hankies that suddenly became significant.

In my collection of worthless, but priceless, treasures, I have costume jewelry brooches from each of my grandmothers and a miniature ceramic teapot that belonged to my auntie. These items have become hugely significant to me.

Even if you don’t believe in the paranormal, you’ll get messages from the other side

You think about your loved one all the time in the weeks after their death. You’ll probably talk to them a lot, too. Then one day, as you’re walking down the street, you’ll recall a fond memory and in that instant, the sun will peek out from behind a cloud and shine on you. And you’ll know, I mean absolutely know without a doubt, that it’s a sign that your departed is thinking about you.

About six months after my dad passed away, my mother and I adopted our first cat. The cat had been abandoned, taken in by a relative of my friend, but hadn’t settled with the cats she already had. My friend couldn’t take the kitten, and so by a series of random events, Smudge came into our lives. One day, Smudge looked at me in a way that made me speculate if he could be the reincarnation of my dad. Crazy, right? Perhaps, but the possibility gave me a lot of comfort.

One day you wake up and can’t remember what they looked like

The dead never age. My mother is almost 85 now. She has white hair and her body has lost its strength. But my dad will always be young and vibrant, his body lean and strong from running, and his face slender and tanned.

For a long time, I couldn’t shake off the images of the last time I saw him on the night he died. But over time, I replaced those with fonder memories of him at the beach or walking in the hills. I’m no longer sure if I remember him this way in real life or just from the photographs I have. But I do know that there were days when I woke up and could not remember what he looked like. Those were terrible moments, filled with panic. But they passed because you never really do forget.

You never fully get over losing someone

Losing someone you love changes you forever. You immediately feel like you don’t fit in, that you are the sole member of a club that even your closest friends aren’t eligible to join. Eventually, you learn to live without your loved one, you get on with your life, and you even love other people. You don’t drag around your grief forever.

But you never really get over losing that person. You always have a little hole in your soul that no one else can ever fill. But somehow you learn to live around it.

 

Filed Under: Love, Loss, and Grief Tagged With: behavior, death, grief, loss, love, paranormal, parent 2 Comments

January 30, 2017 - Lisa Manterfield 4 Comments

The Strange Course of Grief

The Strange Course of Grief by Lisa Manterfield - lisamanterfield.com

My dad passed away more than 30 years ago and there was a time I thought I would never get over losing him. It seemed as if everything I did and everything that happened to me was filtered through that loss. I felt, at 15, that people looked at me differently and that it was obvious to everyone that I was different.

For a long time, I couldn’t talk about what had happened without my voice catching in my throat and my face burning. In fact, I think it was close to a decade before I could talk about my dad at all without having to forcibly keep my emotions under control.

Even now, after all this time has passed, I often find that my grief for other losses is amplified. On several occasions, I’ve been to funerals for distant relatives or acquaintances, people whose passing shouldn’t leave a significant hole in my life, and found myself disproportionately upset.

Sometimes people ask how long it takes to recover from a loss and I always think it’s like asking, “How long is a piece of string?” It takes as long as it takes and, even though our society seems to have an unspoken timeline for grief, nobody else can dictate when it’s time to be “over it.”

When Life Hands You Lemons…

I’m a firm believer that no experience is ever wasted, so I’ve lent some of my experiences with grief to my fictional characters. Although Kat’s story in A Strange Companion is very different to mine, I have borrowed a lot from my own emotional journey for her. I’ve also written parts of my story as essays or melded them into short stories. I recently published a story about my dad that I first wrote for the spoken word event, Spark Off Rose. You can read Lost and Found on Wattpad.

I hope to share more of these stories with you soon. Stay tuned!

Filed Under: Love, Loss, and Grief Tagged With: death, getting over, grief, loss, parent, stories, story 4 Comments

Connect with Lisa

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter

Find Lisa on Goodreads

Lisa Manterfield on Goodreads

Copyright © 2023 Lisa Manterfield · Privacy Policy · Cookie Policy · Designed by Kate Tilton's Author Services, LLC