“Undertaker Please Drive Slow” by Jo Ann Beard

In December 1997, Cheri Tremble made the decision to engage in assisted dying, with the help of Dr. Jack Kevorkian. Several years later Jo Ann Beard wrote about it. Cheri, who recovered from breast cancer only to lose feeling in her leg after a botched breast reconstruction surgery and relapse into the cancerous state that would ultimately destroy her, was a friend of a friend of Jo Ann’s. She heard one detail from Cheri’s harrowing story, the fact that she spent an entire car ride from Iowa to Michigan with her head in her hands, and never let that image escape from her mind. In that moment, Beard knew Cheri’s story must be told. Those are the facts.

“Undertaker Please Drive Slow” takes a surprisingly beautiful look at the slow decline of a strong woman fighting a losing battle against cancer. In the piece, cancer takes the form of a monster that pummels Cheri mercilessly, a metaphor that would have seemed cheesy if it weren’t for Beard’s transcendent voice. By interviewing Cheri’s daughter, Sarah, and their mutual friend, Linda, Beard was able to not only understand the chronological plot but adopt the feelings, empathizing with Cheri’s misfortune long after she was gone. With that level of intuitiveness, she transformed a heartbreaking story into a transformative experience.

“Cancer takes the form of a monster…”

While the piece is rooted in fact and flaunts the most delicate details that bring it to life, Beard revealed in a Q & A recently that a good portion of the story came from her own imagination. According to the disclaimer added at the beginning of the published work, “The external details of Cheri’s life and illness are as accurate as possible, gleaned from interviews with her friends and family, while the internal details—her thoughts, her memories, and what occurred after her loved ones saw her for the last time—are imagined.”  Indeed, the first vivid flashback comes from Beard’s own memory, not Cheri’s.  The striking images pay off though, with details like “the skirt of her sundress, the color of root beer” and a snake’s “sudden flat ribbon of tongue” that set us into the tone that will carry throughout the piece.

Writer, Jo Ann Beard

Beard described the experience of writing this story as heartbreaking.  For every few paragraphs she would finish, she’d call her friend and read them aloud over the phone, oftentimes crying and other times laughing hysterically at the insanity of Cheri’s horrific ordeal, finding it “weirdly hilarious how awful it was.”  Through writing the piece, she found herself loving Cheri although they never met.  Beard revealed one of Cheri’s daughters, Katy, did not wish to participate in the interviewing or writing process, which she could fully understand.  She acknowledges the grey area that becomes an intrinsic element of the semi-fictional non-fiction piece, something she embraces wholeheartedly.  While Beard herself admits that Cheri probably wouldn’t have liked the piece, she also knows after years of professional writing that one’s true self can never come across as entirely accurate on the page—instead it becomes a persona.  She dislikes writing about herself for that very reason.

“Through writing the piece, she found herself loving Cheri although they never met.”

In that same vein, Beard talks about the ethical issues that naturally coincide with writing about someone who has passed.  In the end, there are two ways of looking at it: you can refuse to write about those who have passed for fear of misrepresenting them, or you can take it as a tribute to their memory.  Undoubtedly, when a person’s (or persona’s) story is written down, put into words, it is no longer forgotten.

For more about Jo Ann Beard’s work, visit: www.goodreads.com