In Memory of Jerry Gray

1935 – 2020

Why I Write

by Jerry Gray

I have been so defined by those who were important and then their disappearance, vanished from my life because no reason was given for their coming, or going.  I am writing of childhood, of course, and a damaged habit that then persisted without my noticing, a habit of not asking who that was, how they appeared or disappeared or why. My landscape is littered with disappearing parents, a brother who vanished for 20 years and died homeless, a great aunt who lived secretly 20 years in hospital, a relative who became a Carmelite nun, others whose histories or absences were mentioned only in proverbial hushed tones. So it is in certain families.

On The Road

I  always associate being on the road with escape, with going some distance or journeying to an unusual destination.  I don’t think of going to a local place as being on the road.