THE POWER OF THE STORY

By Natalie Bauman

Most veterans get asked at one point or another, “So have you written your story down?” and that’s not always an easy thing to consider.  It can be difficult to revisit painful memories, and as time passes, so do some of the details.  And you may ask yourself, who really wants to hear my stories anyway?

There are many good reasons to document your memories in a more permanent way. The first one is that the very act of telling your stories can relieve some of the stress and pain of holding them inside; and regardless of why you tell your story, research shows it can make a difference. 

Some veterans’ organizations even use storytelling as an alternative or complement to talk therapy. Hearing your stories, other vets who have gone through similar things can be helped by your unique experiences, hearing how you dealt with situations during and after war, and how serving our country affected you.

Sharing stories about the men you served with, especially those who didn’t come back, and aren’t able to tell their own stories, is a meaningful way to honor them and their memory.  Their families may not even know all the stories about their loved ones that you know, and would appreciate hearing you fill in the empty spaces in their stories. 

As far as the “who” to share your stories with, there are many who are willing and very interested in hearing what you have to say.  Families often want to know what you’ve been through, but may not want to pry or bring up difficult memories, but sharing with them can be very meaningful.  I have very vivid memories of my Uncle Joe telling a group of us kids about his service during WWII.  His stories didn’t focus on the battles as much as the friendships, the personalities and the humor they injected into serious times.  It was his sharing and the time we spent together that I remember the most, rather than the battle details.  Focusing on these kinds of memories can help you open up about your time fighting for our country, without getting too deeply into stories that are just too difficult to discuss.

Veterans’ stories are also very valuable from a historical perspective.  The Veterans History Project, started by the American Folklife Center collects and archives wartime experiences of veterans from every conflict, and provides all the tools to help you get your stories documented.  Your powerful personal stories could be part of how future generations understand the realities of war. 

Their website http://www.loc.gov/vets/vets-home.html includes resources about how to conduct an interview, as well as questions you can use to start thinking about what to share.  Even if you just write your own memoirs, and don’t share them with a soul, it’s still an important process to go through, and perhaps even one that will allow you to pull out the good memories of your time in service. 

Published in www.dd214chronicle.com, September/October 2011 Issue. 

One of the side benefits of helping families (and businesses for that matter) tell their stories is that it gets you thinking about telling your own. For me that's a bit melancholy, as my dad Manny passed away in June 2003, right after Father's Day, while I was still focused on producing videos for companies like P&G, Ohio State Parks, and The Cleveland Clinic, not for families. And could that man tell a story. Although I never got Manny's story on video, learning the lesson of too little too late, I'm lucky to have a stepfather who has ... << MORE >>

I recently met with Rabbi Richard A. Block, the Senior Rabbi at The Temple - Tifereth Israel  in Cleveland, Ohio.  Our conversation about reaching out to multi-cultural and adoptive families in the congregation led us to an even richer one about connecting with those we love.  He shared his thoughts behind the sermon he gave on Yom Kippur 2010, called "The Questions I Wish I Had Asked", and graciously has allowed me to post his thoughts here.  While this is long, it's a perfect reminder coming into Father's Day that NOW is the time to ask your own questions and treasure your time with your parents while you can.  Happy Father's Day to Manny and Larry, who raised me and loved me, in their own ways and times. And as always, to my mom Evelyn, the constant in my life from the start.  Thank you for telling me all your stories and inspiring me to help other families preserve theirs too. 

The Questions I Wish I Had Asked

Rabbi Richard A. Block

A man calls his mother. She answers the phone in a very faint voice, “Hello.” He asks, “Mom, how are you?” She replies, “Very weak.” “Why are you weak?” “I haven’t eaten in 27 days.” “Why haven’t you eaten in 27 days?!” “I didn’t want my mouth to be full when you called.”

Expectations differ from parent to parent, but from the time I left home for college in 1965, the Sunday phone call home was a weekly ritual in the Block family. As a parent and now a grandparent myself, I have a much deeper understanding of my parents’ need for that regular and direct communication, but at the time, making that call felt more like a duty than a pleasure and, I am ashamed to admit, I regarded it at times as a burden. Our conversations were mainly my reports of activities at school. My parents asked and I answered, rarely the other way around, beyond, “What’s going on with you?”

Calls were much more expensive in those bygone days, long before the cellular phone, Skype and the Internet, especially international calls. In 1978, when Susie and I, Josh and Zach, then 5 and 2, were living in Jerusalem, our weekly calls to both sets of parents were extremely brief. They were pretty much confined to “Hi, we’re fine. Having a wonderful time. The kids are doing great. How are you? We love you. Goodbye.” Whatever we could cram into the minimum three minute call in those days. For more informative reports, if you can believe it, we periodically recorded cassette tapes recounting our activities and mailed them home. How I wish we could find one of those tapes now, these many years later!

As some of you know, my parents died almost five years ago. It’s hard to believe that much time has passed; it seems like yesterday. We miss them and think of them often, especially when we are blessed to be with one or more of our grandchildren, Jordan, Solomon, Jack, and Walter, great-grandchildren for whom my parents longed, but didn’t live to meet.

My father, a distinguished CPA, was one of the finest people I’ve ever known and certainly one of the most orderly. When I was in high school, he used to glance at the piles in my room and declare, “A messy desk is evidence of a messy mind.” In later years, he maintained a black, loose leaf binder full of vital information – bank accounts, safe deposit boxes, brokerage accounts, various passwords, contact information for their attorney, and more. Every time we would visit Seattle, Dad would show me where the binder was quasi-concealed, bring it out, and insist on going through it page by page, line by line, detail by detail, “just in case.” He was good-natured, to a point, about the difficulty getting my complete and undivided attention during this annual exercise, but he wouldn’t let up until I fully paid heed. Then “just in case” happened and, thanks to Dad and despite myself, I knew what I needed to do.

Two of the best-known passages in the Passover Haggadah involve parents and children. One is The Four Questions, nowadays customarily posed by the youngest child present. Originally, however, these questions were not posed by children at the Pesach table, but by the leader of the seder to the children, in order to engage them in the ritual, stimulate their curiosity, and evoke questions of their own.

After The Four Questions comes the parable of the four sons, that is to say, the four children. The wise child asks lots of questions, wanting to understand every nuance, and the parent responds with an elaborate, detailed exposition. The wicked child feels no personal connection to the matters at hand and receives a sharp retort intended to cut through his indifference and self-absorption. The simple child’s barely articulate question, “What’s this?” evokes an answer of corresponding simplicity, appropriate to the child’s understanding. The fourth child doesn’t know what to ask, so the parent explains patiently, without need of invitation.

Questions and answers and more questions, stories told and retold, whether invited or volunteered - these are classic Jewish paradigms of parent-child interaction. They are a means by which parents fulfill the commandment, “You shall teach them diligently unto your children” and children observe the corresponding obligation, “Honor your father and your mother.”

The Haggadah’s portrayal of the four childen reminds us that not everyone has the same mindset, values, or comprehension. These types also epitomize aspects of personality. At one time or another, each of us has been the inquisitive child, eager to learn, the disengaged child, cranky and self-centered, the simple child, struggling to put thoughts into words, and the silent child, overwhelmed and tongue-tied.

Like you, I come to Yizkor cognizant of losses. Today, I recall, with love and tenderness, my parents, Bob and Marian, my grandparents, Julia and Hugo, Joe and Sarah, my brother, Steve, and most recently my uncle, Ken, at whose memorial service I officiated earlier this year in San Diego.

As I was traveling home to Cleveland from that occasion, I experienced powerful emotions. One was how good it was to be together with my two aunts, my sole surviving uncle, and cousins and step cousins, some of whom I barely knew and others I hadn’t seen for a decade or more, even under those circumstances. One thing that makes loss bearable is the feeling that we are not alone in the world. The good feelings that the extended family shared evoked in me a desire to stay in closer touch and a measure of guilt at my failure to do so previously.

Even stronger was a feeling of sadness - at Ken’s death, of course - but also at the realization that with his death I had lost the opportunity to ask him questions by which I could have gotten to know my father and my paternal grandparents better. How I wish I had not wasted so much time channeling the indifferent, simple, or silent child of the Pesach parable! If only I had summoned the inquisitive child, again and again and again, before it was too late and that door closed forever. Where was the wise child when my parents and grandparents and brother and uncle were alive? Why did I let that child get away with cameos and walk-ons, when he could have played the leading role in a long-running production? And when he did appear, why didn’t he pay closer attention and work harder on retaining what he learned?

Wiser than I, author Judith Newman asked her mother, “What’s the one thing you would have done differently as a mom? Why did you choose to be with my father? In what ways do you think I’m like you? Which one of us kids did you like the best? Is there anything you have always wanted to tell me but never have? Is there anything you regret not having asked your parents? What is the best thing I can do for you right now? Is there anything that you wish had been different between us – or that you would still like to change? When did you realize your were no longer a child?”

Another author wishes she had asked her mom. “What was your wedding day like? How did your mother prepare you for the wedding night? What were some of your mother’s positive qualities? What about negative qualities? What is your fondest memory of your mother or your grandmother? Tell me a story about your mother or grandmother that would show me what kind of person she was.”

         Earlier this month, Rabbi Goldie Milgram, whose father is receiving palliative and hospice care, shared on facebook that she paused in her high holiday preparation for a few hours to make family photo collages and set them by her dad’s bedside. He actually transcended his pain without medication while going through the pictures...and he became, she recounted, “a river of stories of those times,” a very memorable occasion for which she will always be grateful. What a brilliant idea!

When our kids and grandchildren were visiting this summer, I brought up from the basement a box of family memorabilia I had shipped to Cleveland after my parents died, but that I hadn’t opened since. Together, we discovered and rediscovered a trove of photographs and keepsakes, including photos of my grandparents and great grandparents, and of my parents as toddlers, children, teenagers, newlyweds, and young parents. We found anniversary telegrams from their parents, fathers and mothers day cards sent to each other in my name when I was a baby, and, most movingly of all, beautiful, passionate, elegantly hand-written letters from my father to my mother, including the one he wrote a year before I was born, the day his relief, his successor as captain of the minesweeper he commanded, arrived, allowing him to receive his discharge papers and, as he wrote my mother that he was so eager to do, come home, hold her in his arms, and to start a family.         

Sharing these precious mementos engendered questions and wonderment. They enabled earlier generations of our family to come alive in a new and vibrant manner for the three generations now here and, by providing rare, sweet moments of grace, drew us and our children and grandchildren closer to those who came before us and to each other. Mah nishtanah halailah hazeh?  What made that night different? We took the time to nurture and savor the ties that bind and to inform our loving relationships with greater content, context, and texture.

In her article, “The Fathers Day I Wish For,” teacher and psychologist, Linda Nielson wrote, “As a 55 year old daughter, what do I wish for Fathers Day? Foremost, I wish my father were still alive. I don’t have to wish we loved each other. We did. I don’t have to wish we had been proud of each other. We were. I don’t have to wish we had resolved the conflicts that plagued us during my twenties. We had…And yet I wish – I wish we had been comfortable and more open talking about the things that mattered most – the personal, significant parts of our lives like my divorce, his being a grandfather, his childhood, the deaths of his parents,…his aging, spirituality, regrets, fears, hopes and plans for the future – mine and his….And so I wish – I wish I had realized that loving my father was not the same as knowing him – and that loving him was not the same as allowing him to know me….I wish I had fully embraced my father, rather than simply loving him.”

Robert Seyffert, grandson of a well known portraitist, Leopold Seyffert, said recently, “I wish I could speak with my grandparents now. I have so much more to say to them now than in my 20’s. [But] I was in a hurry.”

Isn’t that the case with us, as well, so busy going about the business of our lives that we rarely stop to connect on a deeper level with those we love? Whatever the reason, as with many other aspirations, we put things off for tomorrow instead of doing them today. It is as if we think that we and the people we love will live forever, that there will always be time to get to around to doing what we’d most like to do in our heart of hearts. But life and yizkor teach us that that is not so.

Each of us carries within a unique and invaluable measure of our family history and legacy. Each of us has a story to tell, one that, if it remains untold, will disappear forever. The time to ask our parents and grandparents, our aunts and uncles, whoever may be the keepers of our family memories, if we are lucky enough still to have them, questions that will allow us not just to love them, but to know them, let them know us and, thereby, to know ourselves more deeply, is not tomorrow or the day after, or when we have the time, or when we get around to it or when we have nothing else to do. It is now. It is today. The time to encourage our children and grandchildren to ask questions and to share our family memories with them is not tomorrow or the day after, or when we have the time, or when we get around to it or when we have nothing else to do. It is now. It is today.

By the questions we ask and the questions we answer, the stories we are told and the stories we tell, we will bring the past alive, creating new memories that will last a lifetime and be shared from generation to generation. While we’re still here and there is still time. Before it’s too late. Now. Today.

"When Time Matters"...And really when doesn't it?; The recent death of one of my first family documentary clients, Mort Kirschenbaum, has brought up the thought of valuing the time we have. His family shared with me that they've watched the video we created last year over and over, finding comfort in hearing his voice and seeing his mannerisms, and with sadness, to feel the loss of more opportunities to talk with him in the future.... << MORE >>

What gems have you discovered in your family history?; Has it changed how you thought about your family or who you are?; By sharing some of the research or paths you took to find out your stories here on this blog, you may help other people as they uncover their past. I'm adopted, and also have adopted a daughter as well, and I'm always balancing my thoughts about who I am, in terms of ancestry, between my "chosen" family, and my genetic one. For those of you who are part of "chosen" ... << MORE >>

One of the most exciting parts of creating family documentaries for my clients has been getting to be an insider as people remember and tell their stories.  It's an intimate, detailed, and patient process.  I've gotten to play interviewer, negotiator, referee and most importantly witness.  As my older clients get caught up in thinking about their parents, their trials as they came to the U.S., their early years here and overseas, it's amazing to watch their faces light up remembering little moments, and almost feeling like we're there together.  It's a privilege, and one I never take lightly as I guide them to remember pieces they might not have told their family before.  And when we get it on video, it's priceless. 

Of course, I spend a few hours with them, then many many more as I work through the footage for the edit, so I feel like a part of the family by the time I hand the final DVD to the family.  I have been inspired, saddened, laughed out loud and been amazed by the courage and incredible scope of the lives I learn about. 

In starting Sunrise Sunset Documentaries, I knew that not everyone can afford to do a professional video documentary of their lives, or their parents, but I always believed that everyone's story has something unique, special, and important to tell, especially to those that are part of their history.  Knowing your roots allows you to grow in new ways, and understand our parents and grandparents better. 

The workshops I've been able to hold have been a treasure-trove of interesting personalities, information on geneaology research that people have done, histories they've uncovered.  As this blog moves forward, I will be including the stories of people I've been privileged to meet and who have shared their journey.  And I hope that you will choose to share your interest and adventures in learning your family's stories and how you've gotten there.  It's a collaborative process, and I know we can all help each other move forward as we look back. 

Welcome to my blog. Please check back soon for new entries.