The Importance of Telling Our Stories
Several months ago, I finally got around to that photograph project. You know the one where you take the boxes of old family photos and put them in order neatly in albums. I had fancy plans but ended up just getting them in, kind of any which way. In the process, I came upon a photo of my mother as a teenager that was unfamiliar to me. It’s a photo of six women. I recognized my mother and her two sisters and of course my grandmother, who looked impossibly young. The other two young women I didn’t know. There was nothing on the photo itself to tell me and, at this point, my mother and my aunts and my grandmother are all deceased. I realized I will never know if these were cousins or neighbors or friends.
And I thought about how many photos most of us have of family and friends and how few written documents. In my family, there are no written documents from my father’s side. My mother left a couple of small, cryptic diaries from the early years of her marriage and I have a few letters she sent me over the years, but there’s no one left to tell any of those stories about their growing up or my grandparents’ lives in their youth and middle years or ancestors before that.
All human beings are storytellers, but in our culture, where we used to tell each other stories (around the fire or kitchen table), we’ve become consumers of other people’s stories, mostly fictional (soap operas, movies, novels) and we don’t weave our own much anymore. I think this is why there is such an interest in memoirs of all kinds.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I have a huge thirst for memoirs, and have often wondered why this is. I think you hit it on the head, Jill! Thanks for this.
ReplyDeleteJanet
Thanks for sharing this. I have wonderful memories of listening to my mother and grandmother swap stories about themselves and relatives. These stories were often shared at every family gathering and became such an important part of our times together.
ReplyDeleteMy sister tried to post this from her AIM account but it didn't take. Jill
ReplyDeleteThankfully you have written a memoir and kept journals for years. You are our family chronicler now--which will be a wonderful thing for my children as they will have a link to the stories of their family. The rest of us will have to hope you've painted us in a somewhat flattering light. But then again, we'll likely be dead when subsequent generations read about us, so we won't care! Your sister
Jay Hughes, author of Family Wealth, says, "Family stories are the glue that binds together individual family members."
ReplyDeleteHi Jill - My father spent numerous years working on our genealogy and his memoirs. Before he died, Philip and I took a section of his writing where he described in detail (including hand-drawn sketches)places from his childhood in South Carolina. We found two of the houses where he lived and were allowed inside one by the current residents. We stood in each location and read his telling of his memories. It was just remarkable. I have always been grateful we did that before he died so that I had the opportunity to tell him what a wonderful gift he had given us. Thanks for your post. It reminded me again of that gratitude. Maureen
ReplyDeleteSo many stories are lost in time. I am sorry I never asked my Grandparents more about their lives. They were figures in my life, but I never realized they were just like me...with loves and joys and pain and great adventures big and small. Now I strive to chronicle my own journey and to ask my family about their lives. To share in their stories...
ReplyDeleteAnd thanks for reminding me, Jill, about that huge tub of pictures I have waiting for me this winter!!
I enjoyed reading your thoughts, Jill. I've been reading a lot of Zen books recently, and I'm coming to understand that while weaving our stories may be valuable, believing them is often the cause of suffering. Holding them lightly seems important. I've also been thinking a lot about which part of me (which "I") gets to author the stories.
ReplyDeleteThat said, I love my dad's stories about growing up during the Great Depression. Listening to him opens colorful worlds for me.
You're so right. What we do today affects the next 7 generations.
ReplyDeleteCatherine