Capturing memories

How did this begin?

I’ll jump right into the sad part: Both of my parents passed away more than a decade ago, both at the too-young age of 71.

As the years passed, I thought about what I regretted , especially about the things I did and didn’t do when they were sick and possibly dying.

Do I wish I’d spent more time with them? Sure, yeah. Taken my kids to see them more? Also yes.

But there’s one thing that stuck out, one thing that popped into my head more than anything else: Recording them telling family stories.

There’s an amazing Broadway Musical called Come From Away; it tells the story of passengers on planes diverted to a small Canadian town on September 11th. There’s a line in there that captures what I felt;

“So many stories gone, just like that.”

Recently, I’ve started talking to my relatives, my parents’ siblings, to record stories about them. It’s not the same, but it’s still something. And I’ve learned how to record, how to listen, and how to capture and preserve the stories of the generations that came before us.