Of Time and Memory: My Parents' Love Story
Sixteen days after author Don Snyder (The Cliff Walk) and his twin brother were born in 1950, their 19-year-old mother died. Her heartbroken husband, Richard, chose to never discuss her with his sons. But when Snyder, now in his late 40s, stumbles across a picture of his parents, he determines to excavate his mother's short existence as a gift for his father, who is dying from a brain tumor. This tender but terribly sad memoir is the result: the chronicle of smart, beautiful, but intensely private Peggy Schwartz, who wasn't as confident as she seemed, who felt completed by the love of a devout World War II veteran, who chose to carry her pregnancy to term and conceal her life-threatening toxemia from that beloved husband. As Snyder delves into his mother's life and death, he alternates between the love and rage that bring him closer to the man most deeply scarred by this youthful tragedy. The book's last scene, in which father and son sit together looking through Dick and Peggy Snyder's wedding album, is almost unbearably poignant. Yet there's also joy in the author's mystical belief that his quest has opened for him "the path back through stars and memory" that will one day reunite wife and husband, mother and sons.--Wendy Smith--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.