Stories, untold...

 

 

 

"When a person dies, the library closes. Untold stories are lost forever..."

I have mentioned this before. Both my wife and I have gotten into the habit of reading obituaries. I know, I know. That is an old people thing to do. Well, now that I am legally a "senior citizen" I guess I can read the obits on Sunday with impunity.

When someone dies, all the life experiences, all that person's stories, also die. Our stories reflect our human condition. They are the fabric which binds us together. When I read an obituary, many times I can't help thinking there might have been opportunity lost to share thousands upon thousands of life stories. Some glad, some sad, some epic, and some ordinary. But they are all stories.

A friend of mine from high school went on to Hollywood to win an Emmy for the TV production Bill and an Oscar for the movie Rain Man. I ran into him at a high school reunion a few years ago. I asked him what drove him to do all the research to come up with such fascinating scripts on these two characters. He answered in one simple word - stories. He had to tell their stories. He too, is a person who is fascinated by life stories. It just so happens he has a talent for bringing stories to life on the TV or the silver screen.

My Mother has been in a care center for a few years now. She has been blessed with not having memory depleting diseases like Alzheimer's or Dementia. My wife and I have delighted in prodding my Mother to tell more stories of her childhood and early adulthood. Stories she might have thought were fraught with banality, my wife and I find fascinating and entertaining. When my Father-in-law was alive, we would hear his stories also.

One of my objectives in 2015 is to hear more stories, to repeat more stories, and to tell more of my stories. Very few stories are identical. Some are similar, most are unique. Stories left untold are similar to treasures squandered. We may think our stories are ordinary, but they are not. They are a big part of what made us, us. Tell your stories. Don't be humble, don't be shy. Tell your stories before they become part of the growing library of stories untold.