It’s incredibly funny how we vividly recall certain moments from our past and lose the details of others in a kind of fog. Of course we remember the shocking moments when someone close to us died or when there was a national disaster that affected all of us. I can describe the morning when I discovered that my father had died in vivid detail. I can see and hear the people and the voices as though the whole thing were happening right now. So too it was with the assassination of President John F. Kennedy and the attack on the Twin Towers in New York City. 

One would think that such shocking incidents would become fuzzy in the cloud of emotions associated with them, but the reality is that we never forget the vivid details of such unique situations that impact every fiber of our being.  That is why the telling of one’s life story is so revealing. It becomes a kind of psychological journey that explains who a person is and what is most important to him or her. How we view the world around us and the events that were meaningful to us is a mirror into our souls. 

I once wrote a paper using the stories that my grandfather told me over and over again. I don’t know how accurate they actually were but their content never changed. It was as though he had memorized certain times in his life so that he might reproduce them verbatim. What those tales told me is that my grandfather admired people who were kind and caring but also who were strong willed and courageous. Every remembrance that he presented had a moral and a bit of humor and spoke of his own difficult journey through life. Losing his mother at birth impacted him but living with his wise grandmother inspired him. Many of his best memories told of her intellect and independent spirit. 

My mother remembered the kindness of my grandmother and the toughness of herself and her siblings. She spoke of her father with a deep respect for his hard work and inventiveness. She often boasted that she was able to survive any difficult situation because she had grown up as the youngest of eight children. She insisted that while they were immigrants who often endured the ire of the people who lived near them, she held her head high with the pride of knowing that she was as good as any of them. More than once she recalled a high school English teacher who insisted that she had the best understanding of the English language that he had ever encountered among his students. She was a survivor who knew how to push back on bullies and ultimately her ability to ignore the naysayers helped her to navigate through a lifetime of tragedies and difficulties with optimism. 

For my mother-in-law stories of family were the center of her thoughts. She never moved far from where she was born and she dedicated many years to completing her family tree and learning the history of the people who had come before her. She was adamant in caring deeply for her relatives and dedicated to making sure that they were safe. Perhaps her undaunted love of people came from the heart defect that challenged her from the time she was a young girl. Doctors told her that she would die young but she pushed herself to defy all of the odds, even giving birth to a son when she was told that doing so would most likely kill her. He story of that birth was at the center of who she was as a person, someone for whom people always came first. She loved with a fierceness that never wavered.

I once had to create a three part autobiography for one of my graduate school classes. While I thought that the assignment was frivolous, I nonetheless enjoyed it because I love to write. The guidelines were such that I had to reveal a great deal about who I am as a person and what beliefs are most important to me. I threw my heart and soul into the writing with as much honesty as I was able to muster. 

The professor liked my work and encouraged me with his comments and the high marks that he gave me but then he took the time to tell me how he had interpreted what I had been saying in the lines and paragraphs that told my own story. I was stunned when he took me aside and insisted that I would only be happy in my work and my friendships when I was making a difference in the lives of others. He counseled me that my words had shouted clearly that money meant nothing to me but that relationships with people energized me. He told me that being an educator was not just a way of earning a salary for me but was really a way of life that fulfilled me. 

We reveal ourselves in what and how we remember the journey that we choose from our childhood and throughout our lives. We may change course along the way but in general there is a continuous thread that defines our values and the things and people that we most admire. Even how we recall tragedies tells us something about ourselves. 

When I think of my father’s death I remember the kindness of my Aunt Valeria who came to aid my mother and our little family in the middle of the night and stayed in our lives to love us until the day she died. I think of my Uncle Willie who saw the grief and confusion of me and my brothers and took the time to comfort us with ice cream. I can hear the loving words of the priest who visited my mother and assured her that even though my father was not a religious man he would be embraced by God. I think of the stray dog called Whitely who randomly showed up on our front porch and guarded us until we were feeling strong enough to carry on without my father. I can still see my Uncle Jack guiding my mother to purchase a new car to replace the one that was demolished in my father’s wreck. I hear him brokerring with a kind and generous man to provide a reduced price on the house that my mother eventually bought to provide us with the refuge that would embrace us until we were adults. I learned from all of these people how important it is to be kind and supportive and I suppose this is the kind of individual I have always tired to be.

Our stories tells us and the people around us who we are. We would do well to listen to them with understanding and awe.