Everyone has life stories to tell and there is a movement to have older people record their memories. What happened in your life between birth and death? Those dates are all that will be on your tombstone. Last summer I wrote my memories of my childhood and my relationship to my sister. Ripples have spread out and energized my brother in-law's family to begin recording their history. With their mother's recent death, his family is probably more introspective and more memories surfaced.
What surprised me about writing my story was with time harsh memories soften and good memories sweeten. I tried to force feed the book to my grown children but realized they will be more interested in years to come when they are my age trying to make sense of life.
A couple days ago I had a younger cousin die suddenly. In the past year I have seen many old friends, some work friends, die. About half were younger than I am. Several died unexpectedly. I hope they told their stories, or someone they love recorded their thoughts about them.
I was listening to MPR this week when they were playing excerpts from the Storycorps project. It was a project that used a recording booth in Grand Central Station train depot to allow everyday people to tell their stories in a limited time. They have over 16,000 stories catalogued and have now published a book. Many New Yorkers impacted by 9-11 are included. The tales vary. If you have never heard of it, browse the site of the link below. My favorite that they played on the radio was the love story of Danny and Annie. It was a good reminder to be thoughtful and kind and loving everyday to those we can easily take for granted in our family.
http://www.storycorps.net/listen/?s=danny+and+annie
What surprised me about writing my story was with time harsh memories soften and good memories sweeten. I tried to force feed the book to my grown children but realized they will be more interested in years to come when they are my age trying to make sense of life.
A couple days ago I had a younger cousin die suddenly. In the past year I have seen many old friends, some work friends, die. About half were younger than I am. Several died unexpectedly. I hope they told their stories, or someone they love recorded their thoughts about them.
I was listening to MPR this week when they were playing excerpts from the Storycorps project. It was a project that used a recording booth in Grand Central Station train depot to allow everyday people to tell their stories in a limited time. They have over 16,000 stories catalogued and have now published a book. Many New Yorkers impacted by 9-11 are included. The tales vary. If you have never heard of it, browse the site of the link below. My favorite that they played on the radio was the love story of Danny and Annie. It was a good reminder to be thoughtful and kind and loving everyday to those we can easily take for granted in our family.
http://www.storycorps.net/listen/?s=danny+and+annie
1 comment:
Mom,
You are awesome.
Mary
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