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A Serious Arteriopath

“A Serious Arteriopath” is a piece of memoir, a personal essay that describes the deaths of both of my parents from heart-related conditions, framed by a series of medical investigations I was subject to the year after my mother’s death. Waking one morning to discover a blank space on the right side of her peripheral vision, the narrator travels down a lengthy road of tests, x-rays, and MRIs, only to arrive at her destination, none-the-wiser. The neurological ‘incident’ has left no trace. The research challenge for a fiction writer in writing memoir is to retain a strong sense of storytelling and story-craft while telling a true story that is a faithful rendering of other people. Is it important important to write an essay that the siblings, in this case, could find both moving and exact? Research practice included examination of the neurological “incident”, framed by use of a lengthy medical report written about my father several years prior to his death, in which the consultant referred to my father as ‘a serious arteriopath’, and discussions with the urbane neurologist assigned to my case. It was commissioned for a collection with the instruction to focus on a part of the body – in this case the heart - and consider its function, its meaning, and the role it plays in his or her life. Other research tasks here included ideas around broken hearts, heart-strings, as well as medical heart conditions.