Stories lived today, shared tomorrow

When was the last time you lived a story? How about right now, even reading this column? The tiniest detail of your daily living is part of an ongoing “history of you”. And a slice of your history is your story. No one can tell it quite like you can, because no one else has lived it. You have!

But if you’re like me, it’s easy for you to downplay the life stories because they don’t seem that important – most of them anyway. For instance, take this COVID-time we’re all sharing in one way or another.

This is a very big story at many levels, for many people in our communities, our county, state, nation, and our world. Just in the USA, millions of people are getting sick and hundreds of thousands have tragically died.

Compared to those people, our stories about living in this COVID-time are likely very boring. And yet… The stories we’ve lived during this pandemic are stories that just may need to be shared with each other, with younger generations someday.

Why? Because they are all stories of survival at some level! And survival stories are always important to share tomorrow – whenever that happens.

rarely think about stories of survival without thinking of an extraordinary man, Elie Wiesel. Wiesel was a Holocaust survivor, later a professor, social activist, moral guide, a wonderful story-teller, and author of 57 books.

In the introduction to his book,” Gates of the Forest”, Wiesel effectively repeats a long-time Jewish truism: “God made man because He loves stories.”

The power of stories is like an underground river that flows — even rushes — from generation to generation, from culture to culture. Humanity is intimately connected as we tell our stories. They ground us, define us in some ways, and give purpose to our pasts and our future.

So here we are, waiting out COVID-time! What stories are you living during this time that you’d like to tell someone? They may be stories of boredom, of bone-deep loneliness. They may be stories of how you began to see daily living in a way you hadn’t never experienced before.

Or a story of unexpected kindness given you by a stranger or a neighbor that prompted you to begin paying it forward to other persons. Perhaps you took on a project or hobby that relieved you of your daily monotony.

The thought occurred to me earlier this week that we all have COVID-time stories that have changed our ways of doing life, even if those ways are almost invisible. Some of them are possibly more dramatic. But whether mundane or dramatic, they are our stories.

They ground us in some ways. They define us in some ways. They impact our sense of purpose in some ways. They shape our sense of what our pasts and our futures might mean.

Would you be willing to write one of your stories (in 250 words or less) and share it with me? Maybe more than one story? With your permission, I’d like to share some of those stories through this Dear Geezer column. Anonymously, if you prefer.

I believe that if we read other people’s COVID-time stories, our own stories might be validated and given meaning in unexpected ways. I can’t promise just how these stories will be woven into Dear Geezer, but I’ll find a way! I look forward to sharing your story.

paul graves, m.div., is lead geezer-in-training for Elder Advocates, a consulting ministry on aging issues. Contact Paul at 208-610-4971 or elderadvocates@nctv.com.