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My Twice-Lived Life: A Memoir

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My Twice-Lived Life has long been in the making. Murray's first idea was to publish a collection of his Boston Globe columns that dealt with aging, the Depression, and World War II. His editor convinced him to look at the subject matter as a memoir, whole and of itself. Good idea.

I've read most of Murray's Boston Globe columns. It is often amazing what he does with these 800 word personal essays. But the memoir gives him more room to explore and develop his subject matter.

We're used to Murray writing about writing. There is a little of that woven throughout the chapters in My Twice-Lived Life. But writing isn't his primary topic here. He writes about the stuff of his life---his childhood, his parents, and World War II, in which he was a paratrooper.

One chapter is titled "The Not-So-Good-Old School Days." I'll use this chapter with my students at Miami University who are studying to be English teachers. In direct opposition to those who deify some past golden time of schooling, Don recounts his own school days and deromantizes that myth. He speaks of teachers today, how they seek further learning in summer programs and professional development, and he writes about how he came to teaching writing.

All those chapters were good reading, but the really courageous chapters are about aging. His wife, Minnie Mae, has had serious medical problems with Parkinson's, diabetes, and breast cancer. Don writes about these times of increasing care-taking clearly, compassionately, and unsentimentally.

In "Fatherhood" he ends the chapter by focusing on the death of his 20 year old daughter of Reyes' Syndrome in the late 1970s. Many of us know bits of this story, because those bits have worked themselves into Don's textbooks and columns, but here we get the most complete rendering and sense-making of that story, including one poem he wrote of Lee's passing.

In the last two chapters Don writes about the extended dying of a neighbor, what he learned as nurses and one doctor tended to her and touched her and helped her to let go. I wished I'd had this book to read two years ago during the time my mother slipped away gradually and inexorably.

A friend of mine in Utah used to say of such writing, "That's it. Write about the tough stuff."

Don Murray does that in My Twice-Lived Life. Reading it made me want to live life well, fully attuned to my senses, aware of the compassionate stories around me, learning how I might approach the coming years with courage and caring and humor.

I got to know Donald Murray's writing while living in Massachusetts in the mid-90s. Ever since, I've read his Boston Globe column online, and almost always forward it to people I know, from my teenage son to my father in his 80s. I keep hoping the columns will be collected in a book. In the meantime, there's this wonderful memoir. There is more wisdom in a Donald Murray column than in most of the rest of the paper put together, but it's not WISDOM, delivered from on high and meant to make you feel inadequate. He's had a mixed life - a ghastly childhood, wartime service, professional failure and success, profound grief, enduring friendships, a satisfying marriage - but the book is not just a collection of "and then I" passages. Murray conveys so well how the past is always present, how it can be seen more clearly from the distance that decades provide, and how old age is enriched by that clarity, even as one deals with the inevitable losses and physical decline. His style is conversational-seeming, but without the extraneous matter true conversation always has. The passages about being bullied in boyhood are heartbreaking because there is no anger in his account. He doesn't need to express it; the reader will be furious on his behalf. Murray is a teacher of writing, and as a writer, I find his books on the subject are well worth reading (wish I could have studied with him). Readers will learn a great deal about good writing from "My Twice-Lived Life," as well as a great deal about living.

Look out Mitch.....you and Tuesdays with Maury are about to be replaced. Dr. Murray delivers his book even better than he did in the classroom. As a former student of his....this book made me laugh....brought a tear to my ear and a lump to my throat. First he taught me to write. Now he teaches me about life as we all face growing older. Thank you for a great read!!

After reading Tuesdays With Morrie by Mitch Albom, I found myself wanting more of the same type of novel and with that I stumbled upon My Twice-Lived Life. Being in my mid-40's, my mind set has started to wander about what lies ahead. Mr. Murray has done a tremendous job capturing not only his life but thought process. It's very easy to read, as the sub title chapter are carefully arranged. His sense of humor is comforting as he puts everything into proper prospective. Anyone looking for answers about aging should read this masterpiece. I loved every page and know I'll reread this treasured novel again and again. I can't wait to give it to my mother-in-law to read.

Some books are easy reads, some books are hard reads. What you get from a book is not necessarily a function of the difficulty of the read.

Donald Murray gives you with his memoir an easy read, yet a rewarding feast. Counter to what he may think, his memoir is not about aging, it is about life.

With people much younger than myself, I have read chapters of this book, and listened to chapters read to me. Treasure pieces about fear, hope, solitiude, and union with family and friends.

Donald Murray examines his life from the perspective of aging. The wisdom learned from 70 plus years of living helps him analyze his childhood experieces in an unloving home and his young man experiences in the mud and trenches of World War II. He details his growth in understanding as a writer and what shaped his development. His marriage, his jobs, his health; all are examined and reviewed through the lens of aging.
The fears faced after his heart attack and coping with the decline of his wife's health will resonate with others working their way through this stage of life. His journalistic view makes it good reading, so enjoy his flow of words and learn the wisdom that may help you or your parents making the same journey.