Wednesday 19 April 2017

Where Do You Get Your Stories?

When I first started blogging, I was blogging just to record my Hero's stories about his early years that he had shared for many years, but had never written down. As time has gone on, I had most of his stories written down, his siblings have added a few, and I turned to other members of the family for stories.
I have been blogging for 9 years now and have found I haven't stopped learning. The other day I was repeating something my son told me to a friend, and had to take a mental pause when I realized I had a story that bore writing down and sharing with future progeny.
I will share, for it is a funny...
My son was visiting with my 88 year old mother. She has dementia that is somewhat controlled by medication (meaning she still remembers things, but can't stay in the positive world long enough to act on what she remembers). The son likes to banter with her, so he asked her if she was going to live to be 90.  She looked at him quite manner of fact and said "of course".  He pushed it... "well will you live to be 100?"  She looked at him incredulously and said "why would anyone want to do that?" The laughter the response brought brightened the whole visit and those who were nearby in the common room of the assisted living my mom lives at. He came home chuckling and sharing what she said. This is a great story for recording.
My mom with my grandson and myself.
When this understanding sunk in, I realized I am missing many things I should be recording other than my personal  journal and the scouring for ancestor's stories. Okay, I hear you now... Duh, Fran you are the family historian. You should be recording even funnies. I know, I know, I need to keep my mind open to all possibilities. This has become so very important to me. I really don't want someone sitting and looking at my picture and saying I wish she could tell me about herself, like I have done over my grandmothers.

You might wonder why I would spend a blog post on my own ponderings. I suppose I have a feeling of grandeur that maybe my thoughts just might reach out to at least one person and they too will begin to write down even the small daily actions and funnies that might give a feeling of closeness and fun to those that follow. Joy in the ordinary.
See ya'all next month from your Texas genealogist. 😊

2 comments:

  1. Well said Fran. This year I'm participating in the A-Z challenge to make myself record some of my early memories, nothing like the pressure of 'having to do it'.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Great idea. I haven't taken the challenge, maybe that would keep me on my toes. :-)

    ReplyDelete

Hello, thanks for leaving a comment on the World Wide Genealogy Blog. All comments are moderated because of pesky spammers!

Best wishes
World Wide Genealogy Team