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The book, and the conversation the book couldn't have.
Three husbands. One died by his own gun. One turned out not to be who he said he was. One left her for a man – and stayed family. Each episode, Shelley Anne Crawford reads a chapter of her memoir in the voice of the woman who lived it, then sits down with her editor to talk about what she just read. Four decades, and the long work of surviving them.
Hi, I'm Shelley Crawford, and I'm the author of My 3 Husbands: A True Story A True Story. Each week I'll read a chapter for you, and my editor and I will then discuss what was going on afterwards. Tonight I'm reading Chapter 1, called Tied Together, where this whole story begins with a phone call. But before we start, this episode does refer to sudden death and at some point suicide. So please take care if you're vulnerable and reach for support if you need it.
Shelley Anne Crawford:Even shattered pieces reflect light. There are moments in life that split you clean in two, the before and the after. For me it was a phone call, a Monday afternoon in early winter, the kind where the sun cast long amber streaks through the leafless trees outside my window, painting warmth where the cold air tried to creep in. I stood over a group of children in my art room, their giggles and their stories filling the corners of my little country house in Ireland, brushes in hand, paint on my fingers, cookies cooling in the kitchen from earlier. I had carved a new life here out of the wreckage of the old one, and I was in a village tucked far enough away that it felt like a place where no pain could reach.
Shelley Anne Crawford:It was one of those rare still moments, and it was mine. Then the phone rang. I didn't answer. I never do on the first go. It stopped, and then a minute later it started again.
Shelley Anne Crawford:I had to take it. Jessica, my daughter living in London. My hands went cold and I answered, Mom, Mom. Jess's voice came through the line, barely held together by breath. It's it's dad.
Shelley Anne Crawford:The pause in my daughter's voice said it all. He's he's gone. There was a rushing sound in my ears, as if the ocean had surged through the walls, but we were miles from the sea. Gone. Not missing, Not hurt.
Shelley Anne Crawford:Just gone.
Dr. Kent Gustavson:That's really an incredible moment. What I see right away is or what I feel is the conch shell of your own mind, of your own ears, the the the ocean inside inside of you, the the the poetry of that moment, and yet we were miles from the sea. And and it's it's distraction from what's happening, but it's not. I'm curious what that moment means to you now.
Shelley Anne Crawford:I guess it's about me always feeling connected to something much bigger. So, and the sea itself. So as a metaphor, but also as something that I've always really felt connected to. And in that moment when I realized that he was no longer here, there was probably a part of me that hadn't really gotten an idea of what had actually happened. It didn't really land almost like when I was thinking back to it, almost like a wave that is gonna engulf you and you know it is, but you don't know whether you're going to get dumped on the sand or not.
Shelley Anne Crawford:And it's funny because I always have these tsunami dreams where I, there's always a tsunami coming towards me, and I'm trying to run away from it, or I'm trying to save somebody in the family, or something like that.
Dr. Kent Gustavson:It's incredible. And the inter I don't wanna say neat thing, but the interesting thing about a tsunami is there's a pause. There's this pause. There's this pulling that happens before the wave comes. That's almost peaceful.
Dr. Kent Gustavson:And you have this moment, the pause in my daughter's voice, the pause, the breath, the sound of nothing, and that said it all. And then comes the ocean wave. And I I think what's interesting about your writing style, particularly in this this very short and, I think, beautiful first chapter, is that I I feel it through my ears, the phone ringing, the silence, the ocean. I
Shelley Anne Crawford:do pay a lot of attention to sounds. And maybe that's just something I'm doing automatically is reliving or living through sound. So even my presence, you know, where I am presently, it's always about the sound of the wind and the intensity of the wind or the river that sounds like a marimba or the birds outside and then there's a different bird sound. And then I'm thinking, I wonder what that is. So it's a very, I don't know, how would you say it, integral part of who I am is that sound.
Dr. Kent Gustavson:What's really cool in this same small piece is that there's smell, which, it's it's kind of the elusive thing in our day and age. We don't have a, you know, a smell device next to our our computers or whatever else, but, you talk about cookies cooling in the kitchen. Right? Actual, you know, beautiful alliteration. But then you also talk about the art room.
Dr. Kent Gustavson:I smell the paint. I at the sea, I smell the sea, even though the sea's not there. Right? So there's you're you're you're you're talking about the sun casting casting its light, but at the same time, the cold air is trying to creep in. I can I can almost feel and smell the cold?
Dr. Kent Gustavson:And so so what's what's really neat and evocative about this chapter is that in in very few words, you've painted something that that really is about death, but it's not. It's about where you were, and where your your daughter was, and where these children were, and to be honest, where he was.
Shelley Anne Crawford:Yeah. Again, going back to the swells, I was smiling when you said that because that's my other big thing is smell. And I'm very sensitive to smell. And you say we don't have anything next to computer, but actually I'm one of these people that has these smelly candles and oils around my house all the time. And if I get a smell that is awful for me, I feel it so physically, so entirely.
Shelley Anne Crawford:So yes, and of course the art and the paintings and the oil paints, I've always loved oil paints because they've got that smell, whereas the acrylics don't really and the watercolors don't, but that's what we would have been painting with because it's very forgiving as well. Oils are very forgiving and I don't know, maybe there was even something in my subconscious around what do I need to forgive going on here? Maybe that's going too deep, but you know, looking back at it back at it now, and that forgiveness thread does come through the whole book actually.
Dr. Kent Gustavson:And the the beauty of kind of our conversation right here is partially because of how you wrote it and the words and the moment. And the the the stark, juxtaposition there is that this is a very brief chapter about death. And, you know, your warning at the top talked about it, and that will continue in the coming chapters, of course, you know, dealing with what this is. But there's this beauty in this terribly painful moment, which I find, interesting. And in hindsight, you can find that beauty versus being in the moment, and there's there is there's a little bit of a difference.
Dr. Kent Gustavson:So that's one issue. And the other issue that I see is this this ending, the the not missing, not hurt. Not missing, not hurt, which is framed by the this word gone. It's framed. Right?
Dr. Kent Gustavson:You're wrapping gone around these two words, not missing, not hurt. So I guess those are my two questions to close us.
Shelley Anne Crawford:The question being
Dr. Kent Gustavson:How how does how do you how do you live what talk about the juxtaposition of beauty and death in the moment and in hindsight. That's the one question. And the other question is about the wrapping of gone around the not missing and the not hurt.
Shelley Anne Crawford:Okay. So I'm gonna do the first I'm gonna answer the first one, the second question first. I'm gonna answer the second question first. So this might sound really strange, but because of how tough things were, which will come out in the book, There were times when he would go deep sea fishing, which goes back to the sea again. And I would sometimes wish that he would go missing.
Shelley Anne Crawford:Or that he'd get hurt. I sound so cruel but I used to think that. But this time there was almost trying to catch up to what had actually happened because I don't write the other line that Jessica said. Trying to reconcile that the only word I could use was gone. And then the second one, how do I reconcile the juxtaposition of beauty and death because there is beauty in death.
Shelley Anne Crawford:There should be. You should be able to die the way you want to. There's that. And then while there is that stark reality or stark opinion, you look around you and there is still so much beauty. Everything is still so beautiful.
Shelley Anne Crawford:It's not like someone dies and then everything goes black. Thank you for listening to My Three Husbands: A True Story. I hope you'll join me next week for the following chapter.