Correcting a Mistaken Memoir

Sometimes I wonder the reasons behind family secrets.

Take for instance this caption that I read in this morning's paper:

In researching the past for his memoir "Of Time and Memory," author Don J. Snyder of Scarborough, Maine, learned that his family had erased every trace of his mother, Peggy Schwartz, in an attempt to keep him and his twin brother from going through their lives with the knowledge that they had caused her death in childbirth. After the memoir's publication in 1999, he learned another secret.

To me, there is something wrong with that picture.

I have never been a fan of family secrets, generally believing them to eventually cause more harm than good.

Usually the intent of such secrets serves to protect an individual whom others judge to be too fragile to handle the truth.

Sometimes these secrets are more to protect the secret-holders than their intended targets.

But the thing about secrets is that eventually they get found out.

Very often the sense of betrayal ~ or at least the sense of being played for the fool ~ cuts far more fiercely than the actual covered-up truth.

For now the intended protected one is also at the mercy of such powerful emotions such as anger, resentment, and even rage.

How were this man's family protecting him and his twin brother by taking away from them their mother?

This was a far greater degree than just a simple white lie intended as a kindness. There was no kindness served in this kind of tragedy.

The twins had been done a great disservice.

Not only were they denied a medical history which could have proven critical had either one of them suffered a serious medical condition, they were denied their history.

Never were they to know that they shared the same laugh as their mother or furrowed their brow in concentration the same way she did.

Never were they to know that their intense dislike for licorice, or their intense love for animals was something that was passed down by their mother.

Was this really something that these twins needed to be protected from? Did they really need to have all traces of their mother's existence wiped totally clean?

Children are far more resilient than people may suspect. And in many ways, they are also far more wise.

There have been many children whose mothers have died in childbirth who had not received such well-meaning, but terribly misguided "protection." And I suppose that in most cases, these children grew up to be well-adjusted adults.

Why couldn't Don Snyder's family let him and his twin brother know that, yes, their mother did die while she gave birth to them?

They needn't have gone into the specific details. Those could have been left at a much later time when the boys were mature enough to process such information.

Instead the family could have told the twins that their mother loved them very much and is now looking down at them from heaven, where she no longer feels any pain.

The boys would have then had the opportunity to know their mother, even though she was no longer on this earth.

But that opportunity had been suppressed all those decade.

And not only was the opportunity to know their mother robbed from Don Snyder and his brother, so was the opportunity for them to honor her beloved memory.