I love to read 📚biographies. Stories of life as others have lived it provide insights into my own life. There’s usually some juicy 😮information that I knew nothing about before cracking open the pages or opening the download on my Kindle. People are fascinating, and I love to read about all kinds of people.😍
I’m currently reading 📖THE RAINBOW COMES AND GOES: A MOTHER AND SON ON LIFE, LOVE, AND LOSS, which is really a series of emails between Anderson Cooper and his mother, Gloria Vanderbilt. While the two were close, Cooper wanted to learn more about his mother’s complicated story. So, the two set off on an adventure through 💻emails when she was 91-years-old that reveals honesty and understanding of each other despite their very different life experiences. I was shocked by much of the backstory of the Vanderbilt 💵family and custody battle that colored Gloria’s childhood and beyond, something that Cooper didn’t really learn about from his mother before these 💻emails. Much of his prior knowledge came from media reports of those events.
Similarly, my dad also chose to keep the details of his time in World War II to himself. 🤫Many folks from what is often called The Greatest Generation were not open about their experiences. They did a job, came home to their families, and moved on with life. ✅They didn’t see themselves as 🇺🇸heroes. I remember asking questions throughout my childhood. Dad would answer but rarely provided specifics. His stories were usually on the lighter side, like how he traded the cigarettes supplied by the Army for 🍫chocolate bars. As he neared the end of his life, Dad decided to 📝write his story so that we would have some details to fill in the blanks. He sat down at his 🖥computer, which was primarily used for Solitaire, and wrote the 🎁gift of his story. He even added a cover page with his smiling picture and a spiral binder- making several booklets to pass around. 🤩
We all have things that we hope our friends and families know and understand about us. 🙋🏻♀️Things that we want to pass along for future generations. Some of us are good at telling our stories out loud, like my mother, who loves to share memories of her life in conversations. 😍Others are better with the 📝written word. Take me, for example. I chronicled a few experiences in my 📖book. For my blog, I write about things that I don’t always say aloud. Thoughts and stories often live in my headspace until I put them down in words. 🥰
What tales do you have to tell? 🤔What if….you write it down? If you’re more comfortable chatting one-on-one, do it! Someone needs to know your narrative. 💯Somebody will learn from your lessons. Take the time to document your journey. Your stories matter.💖
sharing the stairs 