With “All Souls/Saints Day” just a few days away, this is a good question.
I am reading a “memoir” of Margaret Drabble and she suggests that all writers abuse their sources. She says, “The dead may not want to come back to life. It may not be proper to resurrect them.”
This gave me pause since I write about the lives of my long dead ancestors. Sometimes I believe I am channeling them, but that may be just a silly illusion on my part. Certainly Michael Eisan was reluctant to talk about his life when he was alive. What makes me think he wants to give up his secrets now?
On the other hand, some dead really want to be resurrected, or at least remembered. I am very sure of that. There is a teacher named Minnie Williams who lived in Victoria many years ago and was the principal of Girls Central School. She made herself known to me through two very old women in the Oak Bay Lodge, both of whom remembered her in vivid detail at the end of their lives. One of them loved her; the other hated her.
I am moved to write about Minnie when I’m finished with all my relatives, but I haven’t found much information about her. I may have to make it all up, but I’m quite sure she wouldn’t mind. She wants to be resurrected.
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