Remember: Hold dear the memory and WRITE IT DOWN!

Back in the spring, when my friend Jane asked me if I wanted to share stories about our mutual friend Kathy who is facing health issues, I said YES! immediately.

I didn’t first wonder if I had any stories from our time together four decades ago or if they might be worth sharing, I simply committed to remembering and to sending along what I came up with. I sat down that same day and spent some time thinking about my years in Nova Scotia, and my friendship and community activism with Kathy in that province. The memories came trickling, then flooding in — meetings, rallies, gin & tonics, boat rides, meals... I wrote them up, simply, unadorned, and sent them to Jane, as others did, too, and now a booklet of memories is in the final stages of production for sharing with Kathy’s family.

I come from a family of memoirists, so writing about one’s life seems normal to me, and I certainly know the value of doing so — I have plain photocopies of writings that go back to my grandparents on both sides. In what turned out to be the final two years or so of my mother’s life, she was intensely focused on writing her memoir about her life in London as a young woman, meeting my father, and then emigrating to Canada in 1953. I had asked for it, and she was determined to deliver it before she died, which she did. That volume is now a treasure on my shelf.

Time — though sometimes we have too much of it, more often we don’t have enough of it. So now is the time to act on those memories and stories tucked into the shadows of your own mind about that person or those people in your life whom you don’t want to forget. Or maybe it’s your own stories that you want to capture. Do it. Now. Neither formal training nor professional format is required. Just sit down and write down your memories.

The ones I captured for Kathy’s family are snippets of remembrances — our time together was long ago, few photos were taken back then, and I kept no diary of any kind. I regret that lack now, but even without either photos or specific date details, the stories I sent Jane capture the woman we both knew as vital, impressive and generous. Kathy's daughters and her grandchildren need to know this. My memories of her from the mid-1980s are a piece in the puzzle that is their mother and grandmother that help flesh out her story, which she, herself, is no longer able to tell them.

This activity is not purely altruistic on my part. As I did my remembering for Kathy, I relived my time in Nova Scotia and, today, as I weave this story for my blog, I realize that I feel happy for having wandered down this particular memory lane. My mind is filled with the landscape of that province (so beautiful), the women's community that welcomed me so warmly (Kathy, Jane, Nancy, Alex, Bernadette...), my landlords, Rob and Miriam, who remain friends to this day, and more. The two years I lived in Bedford were good years, and it was a real pleasure to relive them. 

I have Jane to thank for the push to do so. Consider my words here today your push from me. Get wandering down your own lane. Then, get writing! 

Tips for capturing your memories —

• Don't overthink the process: Memory is a muscle that will respond once you engage it. 
• Get a pencil, find a piece of paper, and think. Wander down your own personal memory lane. 
• Use simple topics as prompts: school days, sports, volunteer work, jobs, friends, clothes/fashion, food, relatives…
• Most of us are ordinary and it is ordinary memories that carry value over time. Extraordinary memories are wonderful, of course, and maybe you'll remember those first: that exceptional holiday on the coast, your all-time favourite birthday surprise as a 13-year-old, that time you aced the physics test... Your loved ones and friends who read your stories won’t be looking for superlatives and exceptions. They will simply love learning about you, and maybe themselves, through your own memories in your own words.
• Start. Now. 
• Keep going. 
• Save your writings — whether snippets, vignettes or full-fledged stories — in a notebook or envelope or box, or on your computer.
• Share them. 
• Keep going...

CAVEAT: Of course, not all memories are good and happy or, indeed, worth sharing. Some are downright awful, painful, hurtful. We have the right and, maybe, the obligation, to curate our memories, and to share the ones that tell the stories we want and choose to put out into the world for others to read. Remember what Anne Lamott, author of Bird by Bird, says: “You own everything that happened to you. Tell your stories. If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should have behaved better.”

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Land acknowledgement: I respectfully recognize that I live on the original lands of Anishinaabe, Cree, Oji-Cree, Dakota and Dene peoples, and on the homeland of the Métis Nation.

Photo by dianne clifford on Unsplash