Memory and imagination are central to story telling. Janet Burroway’s non-fiction piece, Embalming Mom, juxtaposes between the present, in which the author is writing, and into the realm of memory and imagination. This short work of creative non-fiction, utilizes memory and imagination from the author’s past in order to cope with the memory of her mother’s death. The author starts out speaking to her mother that she is going to write her into a story. Janet and her mother argue about her role in the story. This is hard for Janet, due to the fact of her divorce and her mother’s strong feelings about marriage. As Janet writes, she looks around the room where she is writing; items in the room bring back memories, which depart her imagination from …show more content…
Her mother’s spirit, is a part of imagination. Janet is alone, while she is attempting to write her story. She is lost within her thoughts, and coping with the memory of her mother's past. Her imagination takes a hold of the, and she almost loses her grip on reality. Janet, still knows that her mother is dead, but her presence is still apart of Janet’s reality. Janet accepts the truth that her mother is dead, and want’s her father to be happy as well. Her father marries after her mother dies. This was hard to explain to the presence of her dead mother, consequently though Janet knows that she cannot escape reality, even through her strong, vivid imagination, “ We carried your ashes up to the top of Marble Mountain, Daddy and I; we flung them over the quarry and the foundations of the house you lived in, over the roof of the general store. And do you know, Mamma, they’re ruble, the ,arrow looks like dry dog food. I saw the mineral in your bones, blue melted minerals in chunks” (Burroway,2006 P.87). Janet is attempting to gain peace from her mother’s death; she attempts to speak the truth to her mother, through her imagination. Janet’s imagination is a powerful tool for her, due to the fact she is a writer. Janet’s writing is a product of both memory and