Legacy - Linda Spence

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Then look through the questions for something you know they’ll feel comfortable talking about and just listen. A few times together like this will assure your interest, and after a while you’ll find the memories come easily. (This works long distance on the telephone, if necessary.) Remember that it’s important to listen and that silences are a part of remembering and revisiting long-forgotten memories.

      In many communities, schools have initiated community-wide oral history programs. The Legacy guide is an invaluable tool for these programs, providing a framework for the process of recording oral histories as well as specific questions to ask, building the confidence of a new generation of community historians and writers.

      Legacy is a gift you want fully used and worn, so do what you can to nurture the process. You will be forever grateful for the part you play.

      One day years ago, I found my usually contented mother in a curious state. She was seated, with a book in her lap, looking wistfully, somewhat mournfully, out the window. She held up the book, a recent gift from my sister, showed me its clean, white blank pages. “Your sister wants me to write about my life. I’d like to do it for her. . . .” Here, she trailed off, shook her head doubtfully, “. . . but what does she want to know?”

      What indeed? What is that precious gift we ask of our elders? Scores of people, young and old, hearing of my work with Legacy, have volunteered their answers. A teenager wants to know, did her grandmother love music, did she dance, and to what music? A young sports enthusiast wonders, what games did grandfather play? A beginning cook longs for his mother’s recipes, and wonders if mother remembers any of grandmother’s recipes, or, better yet, wrote them down?

      We are surprisingly curious about these everyday details. And many of us long for something more, something deeper: “I wanted to know,” my sister tells me, “not just what happened in Mother’s life, but what she felt when it was happening.”

      We who have already lost our opportunity say, “I wish I’d known him better” or “I wish I could go back and ask her about that.” Frequently, we hear “All I have left are a few family photographs.” We stare at the face in the faded photograph, try to imagine the heart, the feelings, the story of that person. We pass on what stories we know, telling and retelling, drawing from them a sense of family identity and continuity.

      Many of us are separated from our families by distance and busy lives. Few of us have the good fortune to spend long afternoons together—playing cards, listening to music, baking bread, sitting on the porch, and hearing the casual or intimate tales of “back then.” Rarely do we work side by side with our parents, witnessing how they deal with life’s surprises and challenges. Less and less frequently are our dinner tables set for several generations coming together to share a meal and the day’s events. Even as our telephones bring us together in an instant, it is at the expense of letters, the written record of everyday life.

      It is the everyday joys and sorrows as well as the “big events” that provide the fertile connecting ground between generations. And today, as we realize our losses, few of us find the journal or stack of letters that might have helped us to piece together the insight or real life story we seek. “What does—did—Mother remember of that summer; what was it like for her?” Madeleine L’Engle asks in Summer of the Great-Grandmother; “I don’t even know why we were there, without Father, and it is too late to ask her. I can only remember the summer as it was for me, not as it was for her.”

      This is a book waiting to become your story. Parts of your life may already be known to others, but don’t assume that what seems obvious to you will be familiar to them; and here, too, are questions that may not yet have been asked. If no one has asked, someone someday will, and this written record could be their only chance to get your answers. In Legacy you are invited to share your experiences, insights, and the wisdom and humility of your years.

      Finally, the gift you give to others will repay you many times over and could become the gateway to a wider vision of your life. Your reflections and responses can uncover a purpose you may not have known or realized, a resolution and awareness of your life’s fullness. So Legacy is for you and for all of us, writers and readers alike, honoring our lives, our stories, and our times.

      Maybe you’re ready to dive right in and begin writing. If so, skip this section and move ahead to “How to Read Legacy.”

      For the rest of us, this is the hard part—getting started. We’re afraid of looking foolish, afraid no one is interested. We think we can’t write well enough. Perhaps we think we shouldn’t spend so much time focusing on ourselves. Maybe we’re uneasy about remembering or writing about certain times. Let’s look at these four familiar and common obstacles.

      1. Someone will think I’m foolish and who would be interested in my life anyway? If you received Legacy as a gift, this particular obstacle can be moved aside, because with this gift comes the heartfelt direct or implied request, “Please write about your life. Please tell me all about you.” But surely nobody’s interested in hearing me talk shop! Even though you may believe that others are bored by talk about special interests or your work, remember that what your interests have been and how you have spent your time are important pieces of the whole.

      If you found Legacy yourself, you have already taken the first big step. As you sit down to write, trust the feelings that moved you to open this book. Your instinct is sound.

      If you continue to harbor fear or to doubt that anyone will really be interested, think of a favorite grandchild or young friend, or a grandchild not yet born. Think about the person a hundred years from now who will pick up this book looking for the connections, the bridge, the assurance that “someone else felt the way I’m feeling . . . maybe I can learn from how they handled it and understand more from how they felt.” As you write, picture someone sitting with you, asking the questions. Look at that person, have a conversation, and begin to share your story.

      2. I won’t be able to write well enough. Of course it would be thrilling to produce or read a masterpiece! But, let’s agree here and now, that’s not the point. What we want, plain and simple, is your story. If doubts arise, continue to remind yourself, out loud, “It’s my story, and I’m the only person who can tell it.” We’ll cover some writing techniques later.

      3. Maybe I shouldn’t be spending so much time thinking about myself. Some people feel that it is unhealthy to dwell on the past, and that it is perhaps vain or arrogant to spend so much time thinking and talking about oneself. It’s sometimes hard to see how one’s personal history has relevance to the recording of the past that we call history. To these modest souls I would say that the time of reflection on one’s life holds an importance equal to that of any other period of life. Your hard-won wisdom and experience will be at hand for family members you will never meet, and the time you spend recording your memories and reflections will be transformed into an unforgettable link to your family and its future generations.

      4. Aren’t there some things better left unsaid? There may be parts of your story you are not ready or willing to tell. Perhaps you fear you might hurt someone by revealing certain information. Only you can decide this. Revealing something hidden, in the still-private process of writing your story, may show you that the difficulty was smaller than you had imagined, may even bring a resolution you hadn’t thought possible.

      Perhaps you gave someone a promise of secrecy. Quite likely you’ll find it important to continue to honor that trust. But in some instances there might be other factors to consider: you agreed to secrecy because you felt you had no choice; you were too young to understand what was being asked of you; times have changed, and what once we felt it was necessary to hide, we may now be more willing to share. If you feel the revelation of something you’ve kept secret could be instructive to someone who faces a similar situation, you may choose to talk about this secret from the perspective of what you have learned by looking back, telling the circumstances without identifying specific people.

      In

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