Marisa Ramel Bardach: THE GOODBYE DIARIES
[0:00]Hi, I'm Zibi Owens, and you're listening to Momstone Have Time to Read Books.
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[0:34]I'm really excited to be here today with Marissa Bardick Ramel, who's the co-author of
[0:38]the Goodbye Diaries, a mother-daughter memoir, which she wrote alongside her mother, Sally Bardock,
[0:43]who has since passed away.
[0:45]A graduate of Syracuse University, Marissa worked as a magazine editor and contributed
[0:49]to many publications, including 17, half-post glamour, modern loss, and others.
[0:54]She currently lives with her husband and two children in Brooklyn.
[0:57]So welcome to Marissa.
[0:58]Thank you so much, Zibi.
[0:59]I'm so happy to be here with you.
[1:00]That's so great to have you here.
[1:02]So tell me how you got the idea to write this book.
[1:06]It's an alternating memoir between passages from your point of view and also from your
[1:10]mother's in her voice as if she's writing a diary.
[1:13]Were you guys actually keeping diaries?
[1:15]Tell me the whole thing.
[1:16]Okay, so basically this whole book was my mom's idea.
[1:19]She called me when I was a student in college at Syracuse University and she said, you
[1:27]know, she called me Missy and she was like, Missy, everyone keeps telling me to write
[1:30]a book, but I don't think I can do it on my own.
[1:33]But what if we wrote a book together?
[1:36]And I was studying journalism at Syracuse University and obviously immediately loved this
[1:39]idea.
[1:40]And the next time I was home on break, we sat together in my bedroom and she took out
[1:46]her diary.
[1:47]She was always keeping journals and diaries and we wrote down what we wanted the chapters
[1:51]to be.
[1:52]We wanted a chapter about her diagnosis.
[1:54]We wanted a chapter about how our friendships had changed.
[1:56]We wanted a chapter about this big fight we had had after she was diagnosed and how our
[2:01]relationship had changed.
[2:04]And we decided, you know, what if it alternated chapters between us because we realized
[2:09]we were going through the same thing but in totally different ways from one another.
[2:13]I was a teenager and she was a mom and the patient and so our experience of it were
[2:19]totally different.
[2:21]And she began writing her chapters immediately because she was a teacher and had to
[2:26]retire from teaching.
[2:27]So suddenly she had all this free time and also knew that she didn't have a lot of time
[2:33]left.
[2:34]So she had been diagnosed with stage four pancreatic cancer and had been initially told
[2:39]she had two months to live.
[2:41]And so she really began writing her chapters and I think it was kind of centering for
[2:48]her to have a project to turn to like that.
[2:52]And I was in college so I began writing my chapters but obviously was balancing that
[2:55]that with all the other college things like going to classes and hanging out with
[3:00]friends and so really a lot of the piecing together of the book has happened since she
[3:06]passed away in 2002.
[3:08]So really it has felt almost like a collage where I had her chapters and her journals
[3:16]and her medical notebooks and letters that she had written to me were hard she had written
[3:20]to my dad.
[3:21]And I had to sort of call it all together and figure out how to tell the story of our
[3:26]relationship and how it changed in the time she was sick.
[3:30]And so what happened between 2002 and 2019?
[3:32]Oh my gosh.
[3:33]So much.
[3:34]Not all that.
[3:35]I don't not like what you had from reference but like what happened with the book in
[3:39]terms of when did you start working on it?
[3:42]When did you decide it was something you wanted to publish?
[3:45]So I really turned to it after I graduated from college.
[3:49]I started in a writing group and started writing some of my chapters and figuring out
[3:55]how they went together with her chapters.
[3:58]And I kept working on it through most of my 20s.
[4:02]I mean I had this idea that I would publish this book like pretty soon after she died
[4:09]and it ended up you know this my mom and I had thought of it as maybe a book that had
[4:14]like eight chapters like a short little book and really when I began to examine her chapters
[4:20]and think about mine and telling the whole narrative of our relationship I said oh my gosh
[4:25]this is actually a much longer book than either of us ever imagined.
[4:30]I mean we pictured eight chapters it's 28 chapters so it really changed a lot.
[4:35]And there were years that I didn't work on it at all around the time I moved in with
[4:40]my boyfriend who's now my husband.
[4:42]I sort of thought maybe that was just a cathartic project I was doing and maybe that's
[4:48]all it was and I'm in this happy period of my life now and I didn't really know how
[4:53]the two went together.
[4:55]I didn't know how to be at this moment of my life that I was really happy and be working
[4:59]on something that was very sad.
[5:02]So I really put the book down for about four years and then a year after we got married
[5:08]I said to my husband you know I think I'd like to try having a baby and he said well
[5:12]I'm not really ready to do that yet and I said okay well then maybe I'll finish that
[5:16]book.
[5:17]There you go.
[5:18]And so I spent the next year I felt like at that point I was only maybe a third of the
[5:23]way done with the book and it only took a year to finish the remaining two thirds.
[5:30]I think it was just the right time in my life where I could figure out how it all came
[5:35]together.
[5:36]I was going to say I feel like the fact that you were older like now you have a child
[5:40]now that two children now you have more of a perspective than if you had tried to write
[5:45]it as a teenager right afterwards.
[5:48]Yes.
[5:49]Becoming a mother really changed my perspective on the book and the way that has shown
[5:53]itself to me so dramatically is that when I was working on it in my twenties I thought my
[5:57]mom's chapters were really boring and I thought oh you know I would read my chapter
[6:03]and be so in love with my chapter and then I would like skim through hers.
[6:07]Now I think her chapters I enjoy them more than mine because I relate to them as a mother
[6:13]so intensely now and so that was one of the most illuminating parts for me.
[6:18]You write so beautifully in the book about the whole mother daughter relationship not
[6:21]just with your mother but with your children and the prologue even you wrote that even
[6:26]when you were first pregnant you were so terrified of miscarriage.
[6:29]And you said my daughter reassures me from the inside with an Olympic gymnast tumble
[6:33]the way she has throughout my pregnancy.
[6:35]The size makeshift in my belly leaves me in awe.
[6:37]She never makes me worry I say to friends about the acrobatics and yet by her mere presence
[6:42]and the fear of her absence she makes me worry all the time.
[6:46]She quiets down resting a hand on my stomach I caress a leg or an arm who knows which
[6:51]and imagine my little girl brightening up the spaces left dark by my grief and I wait.
[6:56]Oh that was so good.
[6:59]It's funny it makes me cry hearing you because I just know it's I just I remember
[7:03]that you know my daughter is now almost a year old and I remember so clearly writing
[7:09]that sitting at my kitchen table with this big big belly you know she I wrote this like
[7:14]10 days before she arrived and I just felt like I had so much anxiety about her arrival
[7:23]and her safe arrival the way I think most pregnant yeah women do but I think in another
[7:29]level because I just felt so blessed to be having a little girl and to have this mother
[7:36]daughter relationship back in my life again and I just felt like I have to write it now because
[7:41]after you have the baby you don't fully remember that emotion and how intense it feels
[7:47]I think in hindsight you feel like you're so overjoyed that the baby is there that you
[7:50]don't fully remember all those emotions so I I just remember sitting at my kitchen table
[7:56]and like furiously writing that prologue and now she's here and I you know I really feel
[8:02]lucky every day to have that mother daughter relationship back in my life and I you know
[8:08]I look forward to it continuing you know right now it's at such a a baby place because she's
[8:13]a baby and I look forward to what it will be like as she gets older and we have more of that
[8:18]friendship developing it's so true to the fear that comes with pregnancy I mean I know people
[8:23]talk about it but you know people would ask me oh you had twins like I started with twins how
[8:27]was it and I was like I was worried the entire time I still worry about them all the time I feel
[8:32]like I never stop yeah I mean it's like once there you're responsibility I don't know it's the
[8:38]anxiety and the emotion anyway you captured it so perfectly so I actually didn't realize how
[8:43]universal an emotion it was I for me it felt so tied to my mom and the lingering grief that was
[8:49]still there and then when an editor edited my book she said oh well you you know you're talking
[8:55]about prenatal anxiety and I was like huh you know I didn't know that that was a real thing and I
[9:03]said gosh I could have really had some people to relate to if I knew that this was really a thing
[9:08]I thought it was just like evolutionarily good things right I mean I feel like a lot of anxiety is
[9:15]totally useless but that one makes sense to me like you should like you could see what and
[9:19]anyway yes yes I'm trying to protect this thing you know it's a big responsibility and it continues
[9:25]to be in your epilogue you wrote another really beautiful passage just to skip around through the
[9:29]entire book you said I lay on the couch and hold my newborn daughter close her tiny ear pressed
[9:34]against my swelling heart instead of telling her about my mom I tell her about the kind of mom
[9:39]I long to be with my silence I show her that I will always listen I remember all the times I went
[9:45]upstairs to my mother's room and they quietly beside her until the words began to trickle out
[9:49]I sensed that in the years to come this is the only way my daughter too will reveal to me
[9:54]all the things deeply rooted in her heart as my baby's fingers clutch my hand I realize that
[9:59]mother is dry
[10:00]a strength from their daughters too.
[10:02]Oh, I started crying when I read that in the book.
[10:05]It's like this whole relationship.
[10:07]It's like, oh my gosh, do you feel now?
[10:11]I know it's so early in your parenting of your daughter.
[10:13]Do you find yourself saying or doing things to her
[10:16]that really channel your mom or?
[10:19]Oh my gosh, definitely.
[10:20]And I think that's also one of these universal things
[10:22]that most people when they become a mom,
[10:25]all of a sudden they say things.
[10:27]And they're like, oh my God, that's what my mom used to say.
[10:29]You just hear your mother's words come out of your mouth.
[10:31]And for me, I think most women when that happens,
[10:34]they go, oh, God, I sound just like my mother.
[10:36]And for me, I go, oh my gosh, I sound just like my mother.
[10:38]And it's such a way of her coming back to me.
[10:42]So one of the little things is, you know,
[10:44]I remember when holding my son when he was born
[10:47]and also when holding my daughter, you know,
[10:49]when they're crying, I would walk my daughter around the room
[10:52]and go, ah, baby, mom loves the baby.
[10:56]And that's what my mom used to sing to me when I was a baby.
[10:59]And I remember I relayed this to my stepmother and she said,
[11:01]oh yeah, that's what I used to sing to my children, you know,
[11:04]but I think it's this refrain that comes back to you
[11:08]that has such strong memories attached to it
[11:12]and such comfort and such solace.
[11:14]And it's wonderful how that there are these universal things
[11:18]about parenting that go from generation to generation.
[11:21]And even though so much is different now
[11:23]than it was when our parents raised us,
[11:25]there's still so much that connects us.
[11:28]It's true.
[11:29]There was also a huge component to this book
[11:31]about your growing up, right?
[11:33]Cause you wrote it in this stage of life, you know,
[11:35]high school going to college and it's whole time of life.
[11:38]My husband keeps being like, yes, we what I'm reading
[11:40]and I'm like, well, it's also like a coming of age.
[11:42]He's like, why is everything really coming of age?
[11:45]What does that even mean?
[11:46]And I was like, well, you know,
[11:48]anyway, so tell me about like the coming of age part
[11:50]about this book and maybe the intersection,
[11:52]I mean, it was such a time of change for you already
[11:56]graduating high school, the whole thing,
[11:57]the prom dress and the loss of your mom
[12:00]and the illness that you had to deal with.
[12:01]Tell me just about that moment a little more.
[12:04]Yeah, I think for anyone who has dealt with someone being ill,
[12:09]I think the weirdest thing about it is that
[12:12]your current life continues.
[12:14]You have like sort of this big side plot
[12:16]of someone in your life being sick.
[12:18]And then you also have to keep doing your day to day,
[12:21]which is very strange.
[12:22]And my day to day at the time,
[12:24]I was 17 when my mom was diagnosed.
[12:26]I was a senior in high school.
[12:28]I was waiting to find out where I was going to college.
[12:31]I was waiting to find out who I was going to bring to prom.
[12:34]All the things that now seem sort of childish and silly,
[12:37]but at the time are these big moments in your life.
[12:41]And, you know, getting my mom's diagnosis
[12:44]just blew up my world.
[12:46]And everything I think took on even more importance
[12:50]than it normally would have.
[12:51]I'm already a sentimental person,
[12:52]but something like going prom dress shopping,
[12:56]I always imagined that my mom always imagined
[12:58]going prom dress shopping together.
[13:00]I mean, we were very close throughout my life.
[13:02]And that was something we were always looking forward to.
[13:05]And then my mom was diagnosed in January
[13:07]and a few weeks later she said,
[13:09]let's go prom dress shopping.
[13:11]And it was so bittersweet to me
[13:13]because it was something I always wanted to do with her.
[13:16]And yet my friends weren't going to go prom dress shopping
[13:19]for another month or two.
[13:21]And I knew we were doing it early
[13:22]so that she could be there.
[13:24]And I just, you know, I was relaying this to a friend
[13:29]recently and she said, you know,
[13:30]I don't even remember who I got my prom dress with.
[13:33]Or, you know, I don't really remember it that well.
[13:35]And when I read your book, it struck me so much
[13:38]that every moment you had with your mother
[13:41]when she was sick became so memorable for you.
[13:45]And there's something very special about that.
[13:48]And I think at the time, everything just felt really fraught.
[13:50]But in hindsight, it made everything so much more memorable.
[13:54]And I remember those years with my mother so well because of it.
[13:58]And my mom also became a source of wisdom for me
[14:02]in everything from where I was deciding to go to college.
[14:05]She was very adamant that I still continue to go far away
[14:08]from home even though she was sick.
[14:10]She was very adamant with both me and my brother
[14:12]like she wanted our lives to continue.
[14:14]She didn't want to interrupt our lives.
[14:17]And so, you know, she was also gave me a lot of advice
[14:21]in relationships, you know, I had various boyfriends
[14:25]throughout the book and various relationships.
[14:27]And some of them became very tumultuous in that time.
[14:30]And she was thankfully outlived this two month prognosis
[14:34]and could still be there for me when I really needed her.
[14:37]You also talk all throughout this book
[14:39]about the importance of books to you
[14:41]while you went through all of this.
[14:43]You talk about like the awakening
[14:44]and Daniel Steele novels that distracted your mom.
[14:47]You were reading books on how to manage grief
[14:49]while, you know, on break working at an ice cream shop
[14:52]in the summer when you should have been just out doing,
[14:55]you know, whatever childhood type things.
[14:57]How do you think reading helped both you and your mom
[14:59]through that and how do you think it helps you today?
[15:01]Reading was something that always connected me and my mom.
[15:04]I remember so well we would take these weekly trips
[15:07]to the library after school
[15:09]and just I would pick up my books
[15:10]and she would pick out her books.
[15:11]And some of my favorite times were when she read a book
[15:15]and was like, oh, Missy, you have to read this
[15:17]or I read a book and I was like, mom,
[15:18]you have to read this.
[15:20]And that shared experience of both reading the same book
[15:23]and then being able to talk about it with each other.
[15:26]And especially that happening as I became an older teenager,
[15:30]I think it showed me that my mom was able to start seeing me
[15:33]as a young adult and start seeing me as a kind of a peer
[15:38]who she could share these books with.
[15:39]And I just, I loved that feeling.
[15:41]I think a lot of children love that feeling
[15:43]of when they start to see their parents looking at them
[15:46]differently and feeling like they're becoming
[15:49]someone different.
[15:50]So when we wrote this book, our hope was that this could be
[15:55]a book that a mother might read and then pass along
[15:58]to her teenage daughter or vice versa,
[16:00]a teenage daughter might read and be like, mom,
[16:02]you have to read this because we both loved
[16:06]that experience of sharing a book together.
[16:08]There's something so intimate about a book.
[16:11]I still, whenever if I finished something that I really love,
[16:14]I send copies to my mom and my grandmother.
[16:16]I love that.
[16:17]And then I asked my grandmother all the time,
[16:20]like she reads all the time.
[16:21]Like, Aggie, what are you reading?
[16:22]And now she's 95.
[16:23]She's like, I don't know, but it's really good.
[16:25]Like, great.
[16:26]I had this really nice moment recently
[16:28]where I've reconnected in the past few months
[16:30]with the woman who was my mother's physician's assistant
[16:33]because I called her to make sure she was okay
[16:35]with being included in the book and she was.
[16:37]And the best thing she told me was she was like,
[16:39]I'm reading it right now.
[16:41]And then my teenage daughter, who's 14, wants to read it.
[16:45]And then on spring break, we're going to visit my mom,
[16:47]who lives in Florida and we're gonna give it to her to read.
[16:49]And I said, oh my gosh, you're doing exactly what my mom
[16:52]and I wanted to do and even more,
[16:54]even one generation beyond that
[16:56]that we didn't even really think of.
[16:58]So I love this idea of these different generations
[17:01]of women passing the book along
[17:03]because I think that is what is part of what's special
[17:07]about the book is that a mom can read it
[17:10]and sort of get a peek inside her teenage daughter's brain.
[17:14]And a teenage daughter can read it.
[17:16]And hopefully think, oh my gosh, my mom is also a person.
[17:21]In addition to being my mom, she's this person
[17:23]who has all these different feelings.
[17:24]And I hope it's a way that moms and daughters can connect.
[17:30]Do you feel like, and this is sort of a personal question,
[17:33]you don't have to answer.
[17:34]Do you feel like your mom knows that this is happening now?
[17:37]Like that she's in some way, like looking
[17:39]they do believe any of that.
[17:41]Like she's looking down or she knows or anything.
[17:43]I do for a long time, I thought that I just wanted her here
[17:48]in real life so badly that I really fought against that feeling.
[17:52]People would say, oh, she's here and you can talk to her
[17:54]and I would just sort of be rolling my eyes
[17:58]and be like, you don't get it.
[18:00]And ever since having children
[18:02]and I think now especially also with publishing the book,
[18:05]I really do feel her presence more than I have
[18:09]in a very long time and more than I ever thought I would.
[18:12]I do think she knows the book is coming out.
[18:15]And I can't tell whether I'm sort of torn
[18:18]between whether she thinks like,
[18:19]oh, of course, Missy finished this book
[18:22]because she's so sentimental and family oriented
[18:26]and we were so close that of course she had to in a way
[18:30]and sort of torn between me.
[18:31]She was very sarcastic and funny
[18:34]and I sort of also hear her saying,
[18:36]Missy, seriously you worked on this book for like 20 years
[18:39]and you wrote this book and you're getting it published
[18:42]seriously, so I can't tell which,
[18:45]but she definitely knows.
[18:47]I'm just not sure yet what exactly she's saying about it.
[18:50]Maybe both.
[18:52]And have you liked the process?
[18:53]Would you want to write another book?
[18:55]Or is this like, that's enough.
[18:56]That was like half a lifetime and I'm over it.
[18:58]I just said what I wanted to say.
[19:00]I've actually loved the process,
[19:02]even now seeing how a book gets published
[19:04]and how it gets promoted is so fascinating to me.
[19:06]I think just as a book lover, it's so fascinating.
[19:10]And you were in the magazine world for a long time too, right?
[19:12]Yes, so seeing how, you know,
[19:15]being in the magazine world, you know,
[19:17]the longest thing I probably wrote was like an 800 word essay.
[19:20]So also trying to wrap your head around,
[19:22]oh this is 70,000 words.
[19:24]I mean that seems ridiculous,
[19:28]but I've really loved the process.
[19:29]I would love to write another book
[19:31]and I'm really hoping it takes me less than 18 years.
[19:35]So I think that's like a really doable goal.
[19:38]Maybe you should get your husband
[19:40]to write a father's son memoirs.
[19:41]See, that's what I'm, I keep thinking,
[19:43]there needs to be another dual.
[19:45]You can have it be, instead of your pink cover
[19:47]with a grapefruit, it could be like, where is it?
[19:49]Could you like a blue cover with like, I don't know,
[19:51]what's blue?
[19:53]I don't know.
[19:55]Anyway, I have no good ideas.
[19:56]But anyway, you know what I, you know what I'm thinking.
[19:58]No, they would make it like a day.
[20:00]It's fall or something, really.
[20:01]Just like, yeah, yeah, you're right, you're right.
[20:04]Something more supporting.
[20:06]Do you have any advice to aspiring authors
[20:08]having just been through this process?
[20:09]Now the books coming out and all this?
[20:11]I feel like that's all I want to do now
[20:12]is tell people to write books.
[20:14]I think there's something about finishing it.
[20:16]And also, I think I feel really strongly
[20:19]that there's something really valuable about a long-term goal.
[20:23]I think right now we see a lot of overnight success with things.
[20:27]And even when we see a book come out,
[20:29]we don't really think about the backstory of it,
[20:31]of how long it took to make that piece of art, really.
[20:35]And I always say, like, it took me 18 years.
[20:38]You could definitely do it in less time.
[20:40]But also, I don't know.
[20:43]I guess projects, creative projects,
[20:44]just take how long they take for a reason.
[20:47]And I keep trying to remind myself of that,
[20:50]that I needed to get to a certain point in my life
[20:52]for this to work.
[20:54]So I think if there are writers out there
[20:56]who are frustrated or maybe they've written books
[20:59]and they haven't been published
[21:01]or maybe they've been working on a book forever
[21:02]and they feel frustrated by that
[21:05]or sort of feelings of failure because of that,
[21:07]I think I really suggest just keeping at it,
[21:12]especially if you're enjoying it.
[21:14]I always enjoyed sitting the moments
[21:16]when I would sit down and work on it.
[21:18]And I always felt like those were moments
[21:20]that I was hanging out with my mom
[21:22]and that was part of what was so great about it
[21:25]was that I had this sacred space
[21:27]where I could hang out with her again.
[21:29]And so I think no matter what you're writing,
[21:33]it is sort of a sacred time.
[21:35]Maybe you're not hanging out with your dead mom,
[21:37]but maybe you're hanging out with the characters
[21:39]that you've created.
[21:40]So if that time is meaningful for you
[21:43]and valuable for you, just keep at it
[21:45]and maybe it'll only take you 17 years.
[21:48]If you could say something to anybody
[21:52]who might be going through a similar loss,
[21:54]what would you say?
[21:55]Oh, I wish I had those magic words of wisdom.
[22:00]I think there, unfortunately there aren't any words of wisdom.
[22:04]I always went back to a letter that my mom wrote to me
[22:08]and she wrote it to me way before she got six years
[22:11]to me when I was a younger teenager
[22:12]and was probably upset because a boy I liked
[22:15]didn't like me back or a friend was being mean to me.
[22:18]And she wrote in the letter that she wished she could tell me
[22:23]who to choose as friends and who to love.
[22:26]But that's part of the wondrous journey of life
[22:31]and life is full of unexpected surprises.
[22:34]And I think even in loss, there are unexpected surprises
[22:38]and I'm so surprised by my life right now.
[22:43]When I compare myself at 20 after just losing my mom
[22:48]and how empty my life felt, and now I'm 36
[22:53]and I'm married and I have two kids
[22:54]and my house is never quiet and it's so joyful.
[22:59]And I don't think I ever would have anticipated that.
[23:03]So there's always room for more joy in your life
[23:08]even next to loss.
[23:11]Thank you.
[23:12]That was some moving and so open up you
[23:14]and thank you for sharing all of this.
[23:15]Oh, thank you for having me.
[23:17]Like was really amazing and I'm not surprised
[23:20]that many of a person has mirrored that.
[23:23]Thank you, Zivi.
[23:24]And I love what you're doing on the podcast.
[23:26]And I love what you're doing for books in general.
[23:29]Yeah. Thank you.
[23:31]Today's episode was sponsored by cereal box.
[23:33]S-E-R-I-A-L-B-O-X dot com cereal box.com
[23:37]delivering addictive book content
[23:39]in shortlisten or read installments.
[23:41]Thanks to Ryan and Steve at Texture Sound
[23:44]for the audio editing and mixing.
[23:45]Thanks for listening to Momstone.
[23:47]Have time to read books.