It began with a simple question: Mom, how did we get the farm?
My mom started telling the story and, as memories started trickling out, they gained momentum and built to a flood. One memory spurred another and soon I found myself reaching for scraps up paper, scribbling madly just to keep up. I wrote my mom’s story about the farm and her brother Floyd last week but, really, all I did was rearrange a few sentences and add some punctuation. When my mom started remembering, the story came out almost as a complete narrative.
After posting my piece, I heard from several family members who added more detail. This, from my cousin, is one of my favorites:
Interestingly Great Aunt Jesse was the first nurse in the family, the one who was midwife for my mother. She was also quite the force to be reckoned with. Rumor has it she kept a small loaded derringer in her nurse’s cap which also covered her long silver hair that she tucked up under it. One of my 90-year old patients told me when she was second shift supervisor, "Old Kinch" as he called her put an end to the gurney races he and his buddies were having.
You just can’t make stuff like that up.
After reading my post, my mom called her sister and together they began sharing more stories. In his book, Telling Secrets, theologian Frederick Buechner said:
My story is important not because it is mine, God knows, but because if I tell it anything like right, the chances are you will recognize that in many ways it is also yours… it is precisely through these stories in all their particularity, as I have long believed and often said, that God makes himself known to each of us more powerfully and personally. If this is true, it means that to lose track of our stories is to be profoundly impoverished not only humanly but also spiritually.
Listening to my mother’s stories last week was a beautiful gift I gave myself, quite by accident. Writing them and sharing them with family members was a privilege. Wherever you are this weekend, whomever you are with, do yourself a favor: Ask someone to tell you a story.
Begin with: Tell me about . . .
(My friend Laura has a beautiful post about a sixty-four year love story she had the privilege to hear. Do go visit her and check out her story.)
9 comments:
Nancy, one of my fondest and saddest memories is of my grandmother telling me and my mama about her life when she was young. She then told us the horrifying events of her oldest daughter, 4 years old at the time, dying after being burned. Everyone in the family knew the story, but I had never heard it from her perspective. She would stop every now and then to wipe the tears with her apron. I wrote about it, but still wish I had recorded it in her own voice. Thank you for reminding me to get my relatives to tell me when...
I agree with Southern Gal---everyone has a different perspective of the same event. I "interviewed" my grandparents about their lives, and their outlook on things was amazing.
And it's interesting to hear how the stories change in their telling over the years...my father was a story teller (and author) so I grew up on the stories...some true, some not.
Oh, you should a book with your mom's stories. I bet it would be full of incredible stuff!
great story!
My story is special because it's mine...
Yes! One thing I have learned in my work is that every story is precious. I never grow tired of hearing them and count myself blessed in the hearing.
Thank you, Nancy, for linking to that sweet love story I was privy to.
You SO inspire me to ask the questions, to listen to the stories, to look through the eyes of Christ. LOVE you for that.
The stories are such a blessing, aren't they? I love the way you remind us to seek them out.
One of the consequences of my mother's death is that I'm hearing more stories from my father. What an unexpected gift that is!
Example: Probably because she was the one rounding up missing Mary Janes on Sunday mornings, I always figured Mom was the moving force behind church attendance.
I've since learned that my paternal grandparents attended church only for weddings and funerals---and my father sought out Sunday School, riding his bike to a nearby church, when he was eight. EIGHT.
Thank you for the wonderful story. You shared it beautifully.
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