Thoughts on Tributes

A dear friend of ours lies in the hospital in critical condition as I write this. I’ll spare you the details other than mentioning he’s in a coma as the result of complications following what should have been routine surgery. As the hours and days crawl by, we continue to hope, but thoughts of the other possibility keep nudging their way into awareness.

“This sounds like a journal entry. I thought this was a blog about Lifestory Writing,” I hear some of you thinking. You’re so right. That previous paragraph is a sort of journal entry. But it does tie in with lifestory writing. We’ve known this man and his family for a third of a century. Though we’ve always lived a considerable distance apart, we’ve visited each other, traveled together, and shared many fine adventures. However, I have never written any stories featuring this friend and his family.

Today I realize that whether now or later, those adventures will come to an end. When the time comes, as it must, what would be more comforting to his surviving family than a story or few about our times together, and what they meant to us? This is a double-win situation. They’ll have the stories, and we’ll also have them. Naturally I shall set about writing something right way, and hope I have years to edit it.

Taking this thought one step further, I realize that over my lifetime I’ve had dozens of friends and Very Special People touch my life in various ways, but I haven’t featured more than a couple in stories. I’m not anticipating that any of them will die soon. In fact, I wouldn’t even know where to find most of them today. But they deserve a tribute — a tribute that will be fun to share now with the ones I can still find, and a tribute their families may appreciate later.

Writing this tribute will be a pleasure for me, even if no one else ever reads it. I’ll remember our fine times together, and feel joy again in the memory of their presence.

What about you? Have you written stories about special people beyond the circle of your family? Have you written any tribute stories that you shared with families? If your best friend died tomorrow, would you have something on hand that you could read at a memorial service, or send to the family?

Write on,

Sharon Lippincott, aka Ritergal

3 comments :

rick dieffenbach said...

It's true that many people live in the past. At the same time, its true that people who ignore their past in favor of 'living for the moment' sometimes live truly disfunctional lives precisely because they have not delt with issues that got them there in the first place.

I have a relative, let's call him Kelvin. Kelvin has cut his family off, including parents, sisters, nieces, nephews from a love and affection. He barely stays in touch. When family tries to talk to him, he always retorts 'I don't want to talk about it, I want to live for now, not in the past.'

The problem with that, for Kelvin, is that his past has a strangle hold around his neck. Everyone sees it but him.

The truth of the matter is that each of us is the sum total of our experiences, good and bad, past or present, and that they combine to make us who we are. That's normally a good thing. But sometimes, like a cancer growth, it's best to deal with it rather than ignore it.

That's how I think about collecting memories and writing them down.

Sharon Lippincott said...

Rick, thanks for visiting and commenting so long after this post was written. Perhaps others will find it also. Since I wrote this post I've become aware of the healing power of writing about those past experience Kelvin prefers to ignore and begun teaching classes on Writing for the Health of It. Unfortunately, people like Kelvin probably won't be in those classes.

Your comments point out the dangers of living only in the moment. Rot and mold live in the moment too. The fruit will only last if the rot and mold are removed before they progress too far.

Unknown said...

Thanks Sharon for this post. I drew a lot of inspiration from reading it and have read it over and over since I chanced on it. I lost a dear aunty recently and my family asked me to write a tribute on behalf of nieces and nephews...after putting together the first draft was thinking 'wow, my aunty and I have really shared some time and interesting moments together, though brief and I didn't even realise it till now that she's gone'...
Everybody should come across and read your piece.

I don't know if it is appropriate to say CONGRATULATIONS! Said it anyway.
Kiki, Ghana-West Africa.