Reason to Write

If you’ve had any reluctance about starting to write your own lifestory, a blog post and comment I read today should send you scurrying to your keyboard to get started.

I’ve been blog-surfing, trying to find a template with a three column format that I could adapt for my own use here. In the search, I found a moving tribute posted on October 23 by Don Quixote announcing the death of his 97-year-old grandmother. In this tribute he mentions that he didn’t spend much time with her or know her well.

This post had a number of comments, and I clicked to read them. One was especially relevant to us here:

I sat in my grandmother's funeral and listened to all they had to say and realized that I didn't know her at all. I also knew that I'd never bothered to get to know her. She was just this old lady who featured in my childhood for a while and who faded out when my parents moved us away. Stupid way to be, eh?

I could write pages of speculation about why those two never quite connected, but what would that accomplish? For whatever reason, and sad as it is, they simply didn't, and the grandson didn't realize the tragedy of that until it was too late to change things. He was left with nothing but regrets and questions.

Whatever the state of your relationship with your family right now, what greater gift could you give your descendants than the opportunity to know you later, if the time hasn't already been right? Even if you have a close relationship and have spent a lot of time together, they'll forget more than they remember, and pass only a few basic facts on the the next generation.

Don’t let your memories, stories and wisdom be buried with you. Put them on paper and leave them behind. Then, regardless of your beliefs about the spiritual hereafter, you’ll live on for generations in the memories of your family.

Have you written a story today?

Write on,

Sharon Lippincott, aka Ritergal