They don't really know you, do they?
A month ago, I lost a client.
No, I didn’t fire the client, and the client didn’t fire me. I lost the client, as in they don’t exist anymore. They died.
When I got the call from the client’s partner, who shared the news with me two days after their passing, I was only about 80% of the way to completing their memoir, which is essentially their entire life story.
I’ve heard fellow ghostwriters, especially the seasoned ones, tell stories about losing clients before they could complete the project and how that changed the dynamics of the projects.
In some cases, the partner or children of the deceased client chose to continue with the project; in other cases, they decided against it. On rare occasions, no one who knew the client knew about the project in the first place, so in such cases, the ghostwriter was left stranded. Such is the nature of the job.
In my case, however, the client’s partner had been involved in the process and the project from the very beginning; they wanted me to continue writing the memoir, albeit with an updated conclusion: the main character dies in the end.
But there was more: in the two days since my client had passed and before the partner called me to share the news, the partner and my client’s adult children had discovered false details—many of which I had included in the memoir—about my client’s life.
In other words, the client had led a double life, hidden several parts of themselves from their family and loved ones, and narrated many false stories to me.
So, there lay our dilemma: Do I remove the false details in the memoir and update it with the confirmed truth? Or do I write the memoir exactly as the author—the deceased client—had originally intended it to be written?
Beyond that dilemma was a truth, perhaps a revelation, about this three-fourth of a century that most of us call life: we only know so much about each other and may never know enough about each other.
I had spent almost every week of the last 6 months of this client’s life speaking with them, their significant other had spent the last three years with them, and their children had spent the bulk of their lives with them, yet none of us could deduce or even suspect that a lie was brewing underneath all their stories.
To an extent, most people around this client—myself included—would have felt like they knew this person really well, understood their reality and sympathized with their painful experiences. But in truth, we didn’t.
This realization left me wondering how much I really know about those I have spent longer periods with, how much of their realities are skewed, in my eyes, by their lack of vulnerability and my lack of perception, and most importantly, how much of their pain is hidden by those cherishable moments of prolonged peals of laughter and curated dialogues.
How much do you really know about your loved ones? How much do they know about you?
They don’t really know you, do they?
In an ideal world, the people we love shouldn’t have to experience less of us while they have us. They shouldn’t have to wait until we are dead before they finally get to know us. They shouldn’t have to read about our pain and joys in the memoir we decide to write when we are old and grey.
I’ve contemplated this a bit in the last month, and it’s led me to question why most of us in modern society have gotten so comfortable hiding much of ourselves, our personalities, and our realities from our circles and, in some ways, the world.
What information have we been fed over the years, what painful experiences have we gone through, and who has hurt us so much that many of us have become so self-conscious about the little things that define us? Where and when did we learn not to be vulnerable with each other? And have these stances and mindsets brought us any closer or farther apart than we ought to be?
I recognize that any sort of solution here will take two—if the truths of our realities require us to hide from each other, then maybe we have work to do in finding the words and mediums to express ourselves. But it’s also possible that those who need to know the truths of our realities also have some work to do in preparing themselves for and being open to the truth.
The bottom line is that I don’t want to lead a life where I can’t be completely vulnerable and true to form with my loved ones. Neither do I want those I love to feel like they can’t be completely vulnerable and true to form around me.
You shouldn’t want that either.
If the alternative is the case, then we are doing one of two things: we are either postponing the pain that we will inevitably inflict on our loved ones when they eventually know us (which might be after we are long gone) or restricting ourselves from fully experiencing the upsides of being who we are.
I don’t know the complete solution, but it likely starts with knowing who we are —some of which involves knowing who God says we are—then learning to express that no matter what.
I ultimately decided to write the memoir exactly as the client narrated their life story to me. As a ghostwriter, my duty—for better or for worse—is first to my client. The story is always theirs, and I’m simply the pen.
To the world, the life and times of this client’s earthly existence will be remembered exactly as I’ve written them, but to me, their partner, and their children, the client will never be who we thought they were.
And the pain of that realization will always be ours to bear.