Did it Take 30 Years to Write?

In June of 1995, I sat in the Pittsburgh International Airport with a paper ticket and a scattered psyche. In front of me was one of those black-and-white marbled composition books, like the ones we used in elementary school. The notebook was meant to be a place to pour out my feelings about my sister, who had recently passed away. But as I waited for a flight home, aside from some counter-clockwise spirals, the first page was blank.

I was unable to put anything into words. I just felt so—so…

Well if I had the language, I could have finished the previous sentence and jotted something in the marbled notebook. But, like I said, I didn’t have the words, just counter-clockwise spirals. My grief was a symbol, kind of like the artist formerly known as Prince.  

One year later, I set out to write a book about my experience. I spent a summer plunking away on an old Macintosh computer and saved my work on a 3.5” floppy disk. I penned a draft that three decades later would become chapter 24, but like the Macintosh 6100 and floppy disks, the rest of my creative efforts from that summer are long gone. 

While my novel ambitions lay dormant for years, I started writing in smaller segments. Parenthood led to charming anecdotes about stepping on stray LEGO pieces and watching my childhood touchstones like Star Wars boomerang back into my sons’ lives. 

I started including these first person narratives in a Home & Garden magazine I sent to real estate clients. People were always generous in their responses, telling me how much those stories resonated with their own lives. One neighbor consistently asked, “When's Steve Matsumoto going to write a book?”

The compliments were always nice to hear, but flowery reviews weren’t the goal. Somewhere along the way, I learned I genuinely loved the act itself: writing for the sake of writing. There are plenty of things that bring me joy, but how many truly feel like an end unto themselves? For example, I enjoy cooking for Thanksgiving, but I’m partially motivated by the adulation of my adoring fans at the table. But even if no one reads the finished product, I’m content sitting with my laptop and a cup of coffee at 6 p.m., deciding if the next word is speculative or theoretical.

This realization changed something for me, and last April I began writing a novel tentatively titled The Class of ’95. By then, my thoughts on grief had evolved from embryonic counter-clockwise spirals into fully formed phrases and passages. The Class of ’95 became an exploration of that grief, woven into the specific time of teaching one unforgettable class of first graders.

The first chapter was about going to school in the days after the funeral, stumbling through an impossible attempt to return to normal. The second was a memory of misplaced anger: a time when I tore apart my apartment looking for a cassette my sister had made for me, furious at myself for losing it and at the unfairness of losing her. After finishing that chapter, I told the story to Jenni and the boys over dinner, explaining how that was the last mixtape my sister ever made for me. I saw the light go on for Jenni, and she suggested the title that suddenly felt inevitable: The Last Mixtape.

After five months, I had written twenty-five chapters, roughly 75 percent of the story. First-time marathoners often “hit the wall” around mile 20, but once they push past it, they’re usually filled with a new confidence that they’ll make it to the finish line. Similarly, with the end of The Last Mixtape in mind, each writing session felt like another stride toward finishing my marathon of words.

While the first goal was to finish the novel, a surprising by-product was how cathartic an experience it was. Grief is something that never completely fades away, but writing and revisiting these moments brought me a new sense of peace. There will always be sadness in remembering that time, but reliving it and retelling it was bittersweet in the best possible sense of the word. 

I know this is a much heavier topic than winds up in the Home & Garden magazine. Grief and healing certainly up the ante beyond “Chase was in a play” or “5 things I learned on our Hawaiian vacation.” I apologize if this is more than you wanted to know about your real estate agent. But if your curiosity’s piqued, I’d love for you to read The Last Mixtape and see where the story goes.

It’s a pretty quick read at 241 pages—about 60,000 more words than I put on the page back in Pittsburgh.