It’s hard to explain in a sentence why I was so hurt.

My bedroom was a crime scene. Pinky, my 49 year-old stuffed rabbit, had been taken from her shelf of honor by my cat, her throat ruthlessly slashed, and her innards splayed all over my bedroom floor. I was crushed.

Pinky is one of three relics left from my childhood. She’s survived countless moves, a house fire, and an early violent marriage which ended with most of my belongings being destroyed.

Her first near-death experience came at the hand of my mother. My mom, whom I write about in my memoir, was often a domineering and tortured soul who worked hard to pay the torture forward with her kids. And yet it was Mother who went to the dump to find Pinky after her efforts to dispose of my hard-loved Easter bunny, replacing her with a newer model left me as me sleepless and bereft. I don’t know how many hours it took to find Pinky among the rubbish, but it meant everything to me to have her back. She lost an ear and her button eyes, but the core of her remained.

Pinky represents everything I’ve agonized over writing about in Pieces of Me. Did I give my mom enough dimension? Were any of my former husband’s charms shared in enough detail that my reader would know why I married him? And does my meddling sister’s good intentions ever seep through my anger?

Amye Archer, author of Fat Girl, Skinny wrote a wonderful piece in Brevity Magazine about this in her article Writing the Truth in Memoir: Don’t Skimp on Objectivity after struggling to write with balance about her first husband.

“Through revision, I have learned two important lessons. First, it was more important for me to be honest than vengeful, and to show the reader why I fell madly in love with this boy, to build a connection to him emotionally, a connection that would break down that wall I had put up.”

None of us are fully angels or fully devils. I hope I’ve succeeded in my first book to add dimension to my characters.

I look forward to hearing your thoughts once the book is published.

Meanwhile, thank you to my childhood friend Marti for mending Pinky back to her former old self.

Next post will be author Ann Anderson Evans about her book Daring to Date Again.

And here’s Pinky’s perpetrator. A handsome, flawed fellow himself.