#21: Let's Start Now: Preserving Our Past Through Personal Storytelling

Recently, I had a stark reminder of the preciousness of life and the finite time we have with our loved ones. The loss of a dear family member served as a poignant reminder of the importance of preserving our past, our stories, and the stories of those we hold dear. This episode is a heartfelt and urgent call to action. It's time to start writing and sharing your tales of love, loss, and everything in between. I'll be sharing five compelling reasons to start this process sooner rather than later, with the aim to honor our loved ones, process our emotions, and pass on valuable life lessons to future generations.

Capturing our personal stories, particularly those we've lived ourselves, is not just an exercise in nostalgia but a powerful tool to understand our experiences in a deeper way. During the course of this episode, we'll explore the importance of starting this process now. We'll delve into how documenting our first-hand accounts can offer a more meaningful way to share our life's journey. Not to worry if you're unsure where to begin, I've got you covered. I'll provide resources and tips that will aid you on this adventure of story preservation. So, join me on this journey and let's start writing our stories today, immortalizing our experiences, and the essence of those we love.

Transcript

Melissa: 0:01

Welcome to the Preserve your Past podcast, where we'll explore all things related to the creative process of writing your stories for future generations.

Melissa: 0:10

I'm your host, melissa Ann Kitchen, author, teacher, speaker and coach. I believe that your personal history is a priceless gift for family, friends and generations to come, whether you consider yourself a writer or not. We are discussing the topics that help with every step of the process, like how to mine for the juiciest story ideas or how to refine them into polished final drafts you'll be proud to share. Let's face it sure, your stories can be overwhelming, but I've got you covered. We all have a lifetime of memories to share, so why not save yours to pass along? Let me help you leave your lasting legacy. Hi everyone, welcome back to the Preserve your Past podcast, and today I just want to give you a little bit of a heads up that our topic is going to be a little bit more on the serious side. I'm also going to be talking to you a little less scripted, a little more from my heart, but it is for an important purpose, and so I invite you to listen on and go with me through this experience. We're going to try things a little differently. So this past week, past few weeks, we did have a death in the family. It was someone near and dear to all of us. It was a person who left us far too early and I'm not going to get into her personal details or the family's personal details so much. Maybe that will be another episode with her daughters if they want to share their stories and what they've gone through with preserving her past and their past, because this came to me as being a topic that I really wanted to talk about.

Melissa: 2:16

After going through and talking to them, I was really floored and moved for some obvious reasons and then for some other reasons that were surprising to me. But, as you all know, I lost my mother when I was a senior in high school. She was only 37 years old and so anytime I go and attend a wake or a funeral for someone, especially a loved one who's gone too soon, and I am able to communicate and see and talk to the children, it always is something that kind of hits me in the heart, right Even seeing the husband, because I think that also the pain that my father went through it all also is something that is very personal to me and I can relate to when I see a spouse going through that. So it's never an easy wake when I need to do that. Not that there's wakes or funerals that are easier, but that's one perspective I had when I was going through. Also, another perspective was that this person was very, very near and dear to me, that I had some really special memories of Both simple stories and important events in my life that this person touched, and so it did bring up some remembrances for me on the way she touched my life and enriched my life. And then to see when we were there three hours waiting to go through the line that she had touched so many other people was really special.

Melissa: 4:03

But today I want to come to you because as I went through the line, I was talking to her daughters and Her oldest daughter first said to me Melissa, I'm like so Appreciative for you being there. You know we had the usual conversation, but she was talking to me about how she was really. She knew what I had been doing, she knew what I had been through and talked about how important the stories were going to be for her to write down. And then I went to her next daughter and and she had just had a young child and was talking about how I mean a newborn that her mother had just been able to meet, right after he was born, and what a gift that was and and I know how much she wanted, you know wants him to know her, but how grateful she was that her mother got to meet him. And then the third daughter is really into photography and had been taking lots of pictures to share with us the last few years of this person actually Really going out and living her life to the fullest. So in these conversations it just reminded me very much of how important it is to Record our stories About the people we lose.

Melissa: 5:26

So today's episode is why you should get started writing your stories now. So this is going to be looking at this particular scenario and thinking about how we all need to get started writing our stories sooner than later. So I have five reasons that have come to the surface for me as I've gone through this experience with these young women and family members, and I want to share them with you. So, starting with number one, one reason you should begin starting to write your stories now is that I believe the sooner you can do it, the sooner you will have it before the memories fade. Now, I say this because there are so many things that I wish I had written down that I really have a hard time remembering clearly, or I wanted to share it with other people but I didn't have it down. There's things that I can't remember or that my loved ones can't remember about my parents, and so if we can write those stories that we find most pertinent or most descriptive of the person, that share the lessons that we learned, that share those important pieces that I always talk about, if we can share those most important stories, the sooner the better, we will still have their essence, we'll feel more confident in the accuracy of them, but also we'll have their being more in the details of the story and we'll be able to write stories that have more specific items in them, because our memories hadn't faded.

Melissa: 7:18

So why you should do it now is to do the sooner you can do it, the better chance you have of getting those stories down before your memories fade. That's number one. Number two is you should be writing your stories now because you will want others to know these people more fully. So in this example there was a newborn little grandchild that's born, who was so lucky to be held and adored by his grandmother, but he's going to be relying on what others say, whether it's his other cousin's stories or his mother's story or anybody who's known him, but he's going to need to rely on those stories. So another reason you should write down your stories is so that others can know this person more fully, or know you more fully if they're your stories. Number three the third reason to write your stories now is to document the lessons that you learned from this person. So, again, this could be to share with others, but it might be just for your purpose of remembering the importance of this person to you, of how they touched your life, to remember the lessons that you learned so that you can live your life more fully from those lessons.

Melissa: 8:48

I think of special people in my life that have hit me and even talking about this particular woman who passed away, there are lessons that I will take from how she lived her life so joyfully, so giving. So, oh, just so. Again, joy is the word that comes to mind. She was just happy and caring and loving to everyone she met and, while she would be totally honest about her feelings, she could always find the goodness in everything and everyone knew that Everyone wanted to be around her because she was that kind of a person. And so there are lessons that I learned from her and the importance of family. She cherished her family. She did things for people who didn't have their own family, because family was so important to her. She took people under their wings and made them feel like family.

Melissa: 9:45

So lessons that you learn documenting those lessons is a third reason why you should begin starting to get those stories down. The next one is because number three, actually number four, number four you should get these stories down so that you have something to go back to in the future when you are missing the person. So there are going to be times when you're going to go through something in life and you're going to wish you had that story to kind of peruse through, to remember that the person existed, to see them and feel them with you, right? So when we lose someone, one of the things we're missing is the feeling that they're with us, the feeling of their being, and I believe that stories like photographs are one way we can kind of immerse ourselves in the true soul and being of that person. And so I think another reason that it's really important to write your stories now is because you will want those to go back to when you really miss that person.

Melissa: 11:02

I have stories that I have written down now regarding my mother and my father that just really bring me back and remind me that they existed, because as a mom and as an adult, I never had them in my life, so my daily life doesn't reflect my parents necessarily very obviously. So when I can go to those stories of when they were characters in those stories right when they were there, and think about them, I really love to envision what the room was like or what the location was like. This is why I talk about adding details to your stories. I immerse myself in it as if I am there with them, and so I try to write my stories as if I am there in the moment. And I think those details that you can add part of the reason why I encourage you to do that is because it makes your stories more exciting and better to read, but it also helps bring you back even more strongly. So that would be number four reason to be able to go back to read those when you miss the person.

Melissa: 13:35

I don't know what the right time is for you to do this. If you have lost someone, that might be painful to do on your own, I would say if it's too much to start writing those stories on your own, that doing this with others is an amazing experience, I mean, when you think about it again. There are many places in our cultures, many cultures where storytelling comes to play when we're collecting photographs to put on the wall, when people are giving talks and sharing their information and even sharing stories in line and sharing stories with groups, and so eulogy is one example, but also the informal parts of coming together and being able to remember this person. So using your stories, getting those written, will help you also, I believe, process grief. So those are the five reasons that I came up with.

Melissa: 14:38

I would love to hear more. Let me just repeat them for you. Number one was you should tell your stories so that, first of all, to prevent the memories from fading or before your memories fade. Number two, so that others will know the persons in your stories more fully. Number three, so that you can document the lessons that you learned from these persons. Number four, so that you can go back to these stories when you are missing the person. And number five, to process your grief, or help you process your grief.

Melissa: 15:24

Again, this list is just a preliminary list. There's lots of reasons why you should be starting your stories now, the sooner the better. I always tell you start with you and the stories that you have experienced firsthand, because those are the ones that will easily flow but that you can also share the most details on. So, again, if you do need any support with this, please reach out. You know where to find me my website is melissaandkitchencom. You can also email me anytime at melissa, at melissaandkitchencom, and please reach out for any resources you may need as you go through this process, either from email or on my website.

Melissa: 16:13

I don't like to think of writing our stories with any kind of like ultimatum type feeling, but it truly is very important when I say let's get writing your powerful personal stories. Today, wasn't that a fun episode. I enjoyed our conversation so much and if you would like to continue our conversation, be sure to follow this podcast and share with friends. This helps share the mission of preserving the past with stories. Want more tips, tools and inspiration? Head over to melissaandkitchencom and, as always, let's get writing your powerful personal stories.