Celebrate the Gift of Memory

Note: Having spent 40 years working with the elderly, I have thought a lot about memory over the years. Here are four quotes on memory that come from my writings.

Memories are the stories that we tell ourselves and others to remind us of the experiences in our lives.  Rarely are these stories entirely true.  The stories have been altered by time and our ability to forget.  We have the ability to change our stories and yet believe them to be true.  

Cherish your ability to forget what has happened to you because it helps you live a productive and happy life.  If we remembered every detail of our lives, we would suffer from boredom.  Be wary of the negative stories you tell yourself because some portion of each story we tell is false.  You have recreated the experience to fit your beliefs.  Don't live in a past that causes you pain and heartache.  

Celebrate your ability to recreate your experiences into stories that shape whom you want to be, not who you are.  Our creative spirits provide us with a rich tapestry of memory.  We change our stories to give us hope.  Memory is a creative gift.  Alter your story to honor your life.

May your memories grow in proportion to the richness of your creative spirit.

Are you the hero of your story? Or are you the victim? We all have faced challenges in our lives and we have struggled to overcome difficulties. We have people who seek to hurt us and cause us harm. Have you found the strength to share your story of triumph and victory over the pain? Or are you still dwelling in a past of unhappiness? Maybe it is time to retell your story with you as the hero. Maybe it is time to celebrate your healing.

Our stories are not new.  Others have tread the same path and faced similar challenges.  The difference is in the details. The difference is in our memories. Share your memories and the details that make your story unique. Share what is special about your story.

The fact that I have been fired six times in my career is a part of my story. Yet, I have risen from the ashes of failure to find new paths. I have used my failures as opportunities to grow and change. I have overcome the pain of loss. I have become the hero, not the victim.  

The fact that I was diagnosed with prostate cancer is a part of my story.  Yet, today, eighteen years later, I am cancer-free.

The fact that editors have rejected my poems is a part of my story.  Yet, I did not let the rejection stop me from writing.  I chose to keep writing and have now written over 6,000 poems.  And I still write and rewrite my story.  I celebrate my story. 

What stories are you telling? Are you the hero?  Or the victim? Is it time to rewrite your story?

This is a photo of my maternal grandmother taken in the early part of the 20th century. I remember hearing a story about my grandmother when she was a teenager.  She and a cousin snuck out of the house early one morning and went riding on horses.  My grandmother was thrown from the horse and broke her leg. Rather then tell her parents, she limped back to bed and pretended to be sick.  It took two days for her parents to discover that her leg was broken.

We all have stories from our childhood about our ancestors — the uncle who was a drunk and burnt the house down, the aunt who rode motorcycles and the cousin who died young.  As creative leaders, we need to turn our family history into stories, poems and paintings.

May you be blessed with stories about your ancestors.  For in those stories, we can discover who we are and from where we came.

I wrote a story-poem some 45 years ago about a story I had heard as a child.  I showed it to my grandmother when she was 83.  She told me the facts were not correct and she was right.  I changed the details of the story to protect the innocent.  Yet for me, my grandmother lives on in this story.  I discovered my ancestors through the process of writing the story.

Brother AL

He was a little bit of a thing —
knee-high to a grasshopper
as pa used to say.
But his hair was the funnier sight —
white as the coverings
women wear in church.
Been that way since birth.
He didn't seem to mind it, though,
until he met Ruthy Shonkwiler.
She was a big-breasted girl
with farmer's hands.
Seems he fell in love
the moment he set eyes on her.
But as things have a way of happening
in this neck of the woods,
she had her heart set on Stephen,
old Samuel Yoder's youngest,
tall as an oak
with hair the color
of a bull Angus.

Now, Alvin wasn't one
to let obstacles get in his way.
He would stuff pages
out of an old Sears catalog
into his shoes to make him taller
and he was always on the look out
for something to blacken his hair.

It happened one day
that Ma was cooking up
a big batch of prunes
and she set the juice out to cool.
Alvin, in his infinite wisdom,
thought that it was God's answer to his prayers.
He dipped his snow-white cap
into the kettle of juice
hoping to turn it black.
Well, let me tell ya,
it didn't work.
All he got was a lickin' from pa
and a hot bath and shampoo.
Ma, though, thought he should be taught a lesson.
Said if people don't like
what the good Lord gives them,
then the good Lord ought to take it away.
So she shaved his head
clean down to the scalp.
Embarrassed the poor guy to death.
Ruthy, I'm told, laughed and laughed.

Well, he survived somehow
and married, Eli's oldest, Sarah.
Together, they had a parcel of kids,
not a white-haired one among them.
Ruthy went off to college
and married some doctor fellow
from out east.

To this day Alvin refuses
to eat prunes
or order anything out of a Sears catalog.

Without memory, we lose all sense of self. We lose the threads and tangles that tell our stories. We lose our history from where we came. We lose our connection to the past. Memory gives our lives meaning and explains who we are and from where we came.

Yet, memory is fragmented, distorted and unconnected. Distorted memories can create false selves and cause us unhappiness. We must reshape our memories into a cohesive story that allows us to enjoy the person whom we have become. We must dig through the ashes of forgetfulness and find the keys to who we are.

Cradle your memories in your arms.  Give them the love and attention that they need.  Memory restores us to the world in which we live.  Choose to cherish your memories.

And as creative leaders, you are fortunate to have the skills and talents necessary to craft memory into a powerful story that touches the hearts and souls of others. Through the retelling of memory life is restored.