The Optimist's Daughter By Eudora Welty

Death and dying is an inescapable process that all humans will face at some time in life, whether it is the death of a friend or family member. After the experience of death comes the process of grievance, which is the coping with the loss of the loved one. “The Optimist’s Daughter”, is a novel written by Eudora Welty and is based on a girl named Laurel McKelva Hand and the struggles with grief. Laurel utilizes memory to overcome the grief she experiences, resulting from the loss of her family.

Clinton McKelva is a Judge and father of Laurel McKelva. Laurel left the South for the North and later returns home to see her father before he dies. Being gone so long, Laurel’s remembrance of her father is blurry. Laurel and her dad’s relationship

is distance and her last thoughts of him is his optimistic attitude and not introspective. Laurel’s pain is followed after Mr. McKelva’s passing, she discovers her father's library after his death as an attempt to relive some of her and her dad's past through its material evidence (Gygax). An attempt to find evidence of Judge’s past in his desk, Laurel fails because it was cleared. Instead of finding material pertaining to her father’s past, Laurel comprehends there is nothing left except the books on the shelves, which makes her reminiscence the voices of her dad reading aloud. Ironically, this memory cannot even bring back the father and daughter relationship back.
The sewing room next to the library discloses more missing links with the past and to Laurel's history. Laurel discovers letters from her mother that had been positioned in pigeonholes before she passed away. In the letters Laurel’s mother, Becky McKelva, wrote about Judge McKelva’s optimistic outlook after she was diagnosed with her eye illness. Judge McKelva eventually distanced from his wife and daughter which made him betray his family. After realizing the betrayal Laurel’s father did to his family, seems to turn against the father, that is, the recollections of her father do not appear to be as important as one would expect after the outset of the novel (Gygax). Laurel’s memory does not contribute in reviving her dad as it does when Laurel explores her mother's story (Gygax).
Becky McKelva unlike Clinton McKelva, is introspective and intellectual in Laurel’s remembrances. Laurel does not hesitate to approach her mother's desk, which was moved to this sewing room as she did before she looked through her father's desk. Moreover, Laurel remembers that her mother's "privacy was keyless" (Welty). Laurel remembers how her mother had never locked things up, but had gained privacy through the strength of her own presence (Phillip). Laurel remembers the sewing room used to be the nursery. Laurel realizes the room is a symbolism to her mother’s womb from which she issues into view reborn with a new sense of life. Laurel’s connection with the room is a womb-like warmth: the description of the room is full of hints of impregnation (Phillip).
Although Laurel resurfaces memories of her mother in a positive approach, a disturbing thought came into motion. In hopelessness, Becky McKelva in her death-bed turns her back from her family, including her daughter. Mrs. McKelva’s last words to Laurel are, “You could have saved your mother's life. But you stood by and wouldn't intervene. I despair for you”. Becky appears to point the finger at Laurel for her parallel expressions of optimism, yet also rejects Laurel when she "loyally reproaches" her mother for her pessimism and her assertions that her family has first given her worthless promises and then abandoned her Becky's guilt for not being present at her own mother's death seems one plausible explanation for her "storms" at her family (Schmidt). Becky appears to take out her dishonor on her daughter, accusing her of her abandonment. Laurel not once showed anger towards her mom’s death bed despair, she seems to hold the anger off to her stepmother Fay (Schmidt).
Laurel’s parents’ memory was essentially put away just like her husband, Phil Hand.

An attempt to seal the past of her husband, but of course neither of these "sealings" into perfection can work: Laurel's attempts to create a perfectly safe past are themselves as much a violation of her parents' lives together as anything that Fay does, or any story told at the funeral; Laurel in her need is being false to her own fullest memories (Schmidt). As Laurel is in her father’s library, she notices a photograph of her and Phil on her father's desk, she replies in her memories, "Her marriage had been of magical ease, and conclusion belonging to Chicago and not here" (Gygax). Laurel distinguishes that she has preserved Phil in her memory as something untouchable, "sealed away," but "now, by her own hands, the past had been raised up"

(Gygax).
Wanda Fay is a younger and selfish woman who married Laurel’s father, Judge McKelva, shortly after his first wife’s death. Laurel briefly met Fay at her father’s wedding and a year and a half later at the hospital where Mr. McKelva died. Throughout the story, Laurel has no understanding of Fay’s attitude and view on life. Laurel’s perspective towards Fay drastically changed, especially when Judge McKelva passes away in bed but Fay's attempt to pull and wake the Judge from his bed probably has nothing to do with the Judge's death, but the violence shocks Laurel.
Although Fay did not pass away, her irritating presence forces Laurel to examine her memory of her parents (Phillips).

Laurel encounters a breadboard her husband, Phil Hand, handcrafted for Mrs. McKelva. In Laurel’s eyes, the breadboard was a present and holds memories of her deceased husband and mother, on the contrary the stepmother thought differently of the gift. In Fay’s view, “It’s just an old board, isn’t it?” (Welty). Fay’s point is that it’s a useless board that she used to crack walnuts and kill cigarette butts. Reacting with anger after seeing the breadboard careless use, Laurel suddenly realizes the necessity of remembering the past while looking toward the future (Entzminger). Another example of Fay’s attribute to Laurel’s battle of grief, A heated conversation between Laurel and her stepmom, Fay states, “Past isn’t a thing to me. I belong in the future” (Welty). In other words, Fay believes there is no need to mourn Mr. McKelva’s death since he will no longer be in her life. Fay’s selfishness thoughts assisted Laurel to realize her stepmom is merely the future which will not influence Laurel’s understanding, "Memory are not lived in possessions but lived in the heart and patterns restored by dreams”

(Welty).
The past was unclear for Laurel because of her year’s absent from the South. Because of the devastating circumstance of Laurel’s father’s death, she had to unlock her past she had sealed away and face the truth about her family. Even though some of the memories were not as bright and uplifting, she was able to accept the truth and move past her mournful stage.