by YUMI WILSON-SPATTA

Some proclaim they are writers; others say they don’t know the first thing about writing. My big brother Tabo reminded me one recent afternoon that everyone, whether they have spent countless hours working and studying formally in the craft of writing or not, has a story worth telling.

“Got a minute?” my brother asked after our usual exchange of “Hey” on the cell phone.

“Yeah, what’s up?”

“Well … I had to write this speech for my class … It’s about Mom. Will you listen to it?”

“Of course,” I said, clearing my throat. My brother, who had just resumed his pursuit of a bachelor’s degree after more than 15 years of working as a nurse, often agonized over the written word, worrying endlessly over whether anyone would understand what he was really trying to say.

I, on the other hand, had written professionally as a journalist and taught journalism for 17 years and recently obtained an MFA in creative writing. If anyone could help my brother, I knew it would be me.

“When does one really understand the impact an important person has had on their lives?” my brother asked haltingly. “Is it when the person is actually gone or is it much later? The importance of a person depends on the impact, or the lack thereof, that the person has had on a person’s life. So, I would like to talk to you about my mom and her importance to me, and the day I actually felt her substantial loss.”

Nothing, as far as I could tell, stood out as a flaw. I pressed my cell phone’s cushiony ear bud against my head.

“This loss,” my brother continued, “when it actually occurs, changes the person’s very thought process, the way that the person responds to situations that occur in their lives.”

My brother paused, waiting for my response. When he heard only silence he went on.

“The phone rings. Its sound pierces through our small apartment hallways. I answer the phone. ‘Mom had a heart attack,’ bemoans my younger sister Yumi, her voice trembling with all her frustrations and despair. The statement is a cold and calculated one, a statement that has only the saddest of intentions.”

My throat tightens. My brother’s voice grows stronger, more confident.

“It was Dec. 4, 1991, I guess around 8 p.m. and Michelle (his then-wife) and I were just heading off to bed when the phone rings and with my sister on the other end, I hear the words ‘Mom had a heart attack.’ My sister tells me to come to Los Angeles right away because the doctors don’t expect Mom to live much longer.

“At this point I stop thinking rationally and start reacting on pure adrenaline. Time seems to stand still, slowed down for a while, and then proceeds to run circles around me. I couldn’t think straight to save my own life. At one point things started to become surreal like a poorly made B-rated movie.”

My lips tighten as I take in the fact that my brother, with no formal training, has just rendered a scene similar to one that I had been trying to write about forever with little success.

“Stepping into my mom’s hospital room and seeing all of the hanging medications and the big tube in her mouth humbled me quick,” my brother said. “It was now for the first time, I really cared about my mom. After a quick discussion with the nurse, I sat down next to her and started to cry, like a baby I cried, there was no consolation or ‘I know what you are going through’ that could have stopped my grief. Nothing the nurses or the doctors did stopped the eventual outcome for my mom; death was just around the corner.

“At the later portion of my mom’s life she gathered enough strength to mouth the words ‘I love you’ to me. That had been the first and only time I had heard those words from my mom. This was little solace to someone who had just lost the most important influence in his life. A thought I kept secret for a very long time.”

No longer was I able to focus on the grammar or structure of my brother’s sentences. No longer did I care if something was a fragment or run-on. All I could think about was the story, captured by his emotions made bare.

“Looking back, I thought I missed my mom when she died or even when she was buried, no life would teach me otherwise,” my brother continued. “Selfish and only thinking of myself, I really never cared about much until the day Michelle asked for a divorce. At that time with no one to turn to, no one to console me, I felt the absence of my mom.

“No one can ever be for sure if they will miss someone they have lost immediately or later or even at all, but life has a funny way of reminding you of these things. Just like the happiness of birth and to the sadness of death, just like time moves forward you can be assured all of you at one point in your life will say these words, ‘I miss you.’ ”

My brother’s words seemed so raw, so powerful; so authentic. It had become clear to me that time had not healed the wounds of losing our mother in the winter of ’91, but time had given my brother the distance needed to reflect honestly about the challenges he had faced in his life with his mother and his former wife.

“I never truly felt the loss of my mom until the darkest time in my life left me without anyone to turn to. It’s not when my mom died, or even when she was buried. Only at the lowest time in my life did I actually feel the loss of my mom.

“People often tell you to look ahead and keep your eye on the future, but looking back for me is the only way I can see my mom, a person who never said too much and showed little emotion, but somehow I knew she loved me. I really miss her.”

I tried to remind myself that I was supposed to be the writer in the family, to tell my brother how to get an “A” on a paper, but tears rolled down my face anyway. My brother hadn’t simply written a speech for class, he had written a story — full of rich yet succinct scenes, powerful observations, important summary and reflection. He had shared a story not only important to our family, but important to all of us as we struggle with life, longing and loss.

“So what do you think? You still there?” my brother asked.

It took me a moment to hide my envy. I had spent years trying to render the complexity of feelings I had for my mother — a woman who seemed distant yet loving at the same time. My brother had just captured my thoughts in 20 minutes — it was his first draft, he said. Why hadn’t I written that scene? Why hadn’t I been able to explode with such intensity on the page? Why hadn’t I considered my brother a writer before?

That’s when it hit me. Nothing in life, not your umpteen years of education and professional work, not the articles and/or books you’ve published or getting close to publishing, makes you a Writer. Writing comes from somewhere deep in all of us, a place that can’t be labeled, defined or contained. It’s in all of us, in our emotions we allow ourselves to feel — and to share honestly on the page, not the technique or formula you choose to follow.

“That was beautiful,” I said, “I mean really beautiful. I wouldn’t change a thing.”

My brother didn’t seem convinced. “Well, let me send you this … so you can read it and tell me if there’s anything wrong. I have until 5:30 p.m.”

I didn’t get home in time from work to “correct” my brother’s story, but the piece, I would later learn, didn’t need much correcting at all. In fact, the piece reminded me that I no longer have to shoulder the burden of trying to tell my mother’s story on my own.

I have my brother, and even my big sister, who had also recently shared a moving piece about my mother in her ethnic studies class (she’s also going back to school to finish her degree).

Several nights after my brother read his speech to me on the phone, he called to say that he had come to an important realization.

“Yumi,” he said, “After all these years of doubting myself, of telling myself I can’t write … I think I can write. I think I have a lot to say.”

“Yes,” I said, “you can write, Tabo. And you should.”

Yumi Wilson writes once a month. Send questions or comments to ywilson@sfsu.edu.