The ghost in the machine

The holiday season always evokes that feeling of sparkle and adventure in me. While my household no longer holds the children who come and go, I look forward to the time when I can host my friends and families in my home or within the festiveness of the city. Being an empty nester has allowed me to grow as an explorer, becoming brave enough to leave my cozy home base during the darker season to engage the world around me with those whom I hold dear. Mindfulness for me during this season of sentimentality is about really seeing the people I’m with, relishing the moment, and helping to create that joy in all we are during this time.

So it was my holiday endeavor to share with my children my memories of days gone past in a way that conveyed the stories they were too young to remember. Photographs presented still life moments of special times, but on video I captured first words, first steps, and first missing teeth. Holidays and birthdays were recorded in documentarian style, knowing even back then that these days would become self-evident in the journey my children were taking. Giddy in my excitement of receiving the final product of this Christmas endeavor, I also expected a trip down memory lane with the extra features of this conversion. Among the multitude of recordings I had provided were mystery cartons and boxes I had never viewed. It was unclear how far back this digital journey would take me.

My goal was to share our family story with the next generations. Would these cannisters of celluloid give my family a sense of history like old Polaroids never could? I clicked on the first icon, seeing a 1951 parade and then the Rose Bowl football game. Numerous captured moments of Central California history, of which John Steinbeck might even be proud. Grainy, silent moments in the time of my family’s past filled my screen. As I watched, I saw the entrance of a young California rancher and his wife, who was dressed in a starched blouse and full skirt. As the camera set on a tall, slim, dark haired beauty of a girl, maybe 14 years old, I stopped because I was looking at a reflection of myself. My mother had appeared in frame, in a setting that took me back to my childhood. The setting of my favorite Christmas memories. This was my mother, smiling, walking, and laughing in her childhood home.

Because my daughters would grow up not seeing my side of the family very often, I wove the fondest of my childhood memories into their daily course of living. Tales of the ranch, the sprawling patio on which my sister and I rollerskated, along the midcentury splendour of Christmas in California with Grammy and Granddad likely fell short on the ears of little girls. But now, there was video to back every story I’d told them.

This shift in my personal timeline stopped me in my tracks. It was like seeing myself, but not myself, filmed in a family story I knew little about. It was like seeing a ghost – the ghost in this machine was forcing me to rewrite everything I knew about my early life. How could there be so much I did not know about my mother and who would eventually become my father?

Seeing my young mother with her grandparents and cousins and little brother camping among the 1950s Sequoias expanded my family story in a way nothing else could. Like bellows on a fire, this richness of my ancestry had blown life into my identity in a way only personal history could. Like that grandfather telling that same story over and over at the dinner table, I now had added depth of who I was and from whence I came to the mother…to the person I’d become for my children. The life I had crafted from the experiences as I remembered them became more layered, more vibrant with each roll of film I viewed. Mindful of my past but remembering to live in my moments, I realized that these digital ghosts did not haunt my present, but made it richer. I now approach the new year with a confidence that is grounded, like the roots of those Sequoias, in the foundation of our generations reaching for the skies as I grow.

Who will tell my story?

Just recently was the anniversary of my mother’s death. It’s been six years since she passed away in my home town. We had lived apart, almost 2,000 miles apart, and while technology made it seem closer, it was not close enough. She had become unable to travel and I was still in full-time parent mode. However, as she had more time to visit with me in her retirement years, I was able get to know more about her time as a mother of girls and even a little as a young girl herself. Between the stories of aches and pains of senior life and drama she lived with distant family and her residential facility friends, she occasionally shared a recollection of a time I knew little or nothing about – her youth.

After her death, my sister and I took time to study the few remaining pieces of her life she’d left behind with us. Since moving to an assisted living facility and having to sell her home, it was clear that she had to let go of the identity she had once created for herself as wife, teacher, mother, homeowner, and grandmother. In this new setting and for the years that followed, my mother evolved – or maybe devolved – into the life she led until her death. Now, in a few boxes, what remained of her was given to us to discover.

What we found in these boxes was a woman we barely knew. Instead of the conservative woman who shied away from risk, we found an adventurer. Someone who was a leader, a success within any community she engaged. Someone who, as a young girl from a tiny farming community, fished and camped in the Redwoods. As a teacher fresh out of college, she went to the Far East to travel and teach to young children with military families. We discovered lapel pins and class photos and evidence of her travels to exotic places. We felt sad that the woman we had come to know in death was not the woman we knew in life.

Those of you who follow this journey of mine into midlife have heard my stories of decluttering my life and focusing on the present. Instead of what had become a routine of schedules and sacrifice, I am focusing more on enjoying my life as it unfolds and living an authentic life built not only on the past but the present. As I read between the lines of my mother’s belongings, I was saddened to conclude that we, as a family, had been unsuccessful in helping her tell her story. Instead of celebrating who she was with us, she had put it in the past and lived a life she felt she should – a life of obligation. Where was this carefree girl fishing in the river? Exploring her world? Leading the charge of those around her? Why were we left with a feeling that we didn’t genuinely know the wonderful person she was? How different would our lives have been had this woman had been more a part of our lives?

My father, who had become estranged from our family after the divorce, led a very troubled and lonely life. In death a couple years later, he left no one behind to share his story. My decluttering of my parents belongings and other collected items allowed me to reminisce through the artifacts of my personal history. This gave me pause to think about my life and how I want to be remembered when I am no longer here to tell MY story. Some will ask, why does it matter? You will be gone and it will no longer affect you. After much reflection, I have concluded it matters to me because I want to be remembered. I want my story to be woven into the fabric of my “people” and their collective hearts. Being remembered gives your love and the life you lead purpose.

Nowadays, with social media, people who really don’t know you well may only know what you share via your streams of posts and tweets. The duality of crafting your public story versus living your private one has become the reality of today’s generation. I wholeheartedly believe that we owe it to ourselves to tell our own story. I derive my strength and inspiration from the string of events that are mine and mine alone. All the good and the bad moments have made me who I am and I want my people to know every bit of it. What about you? What of your life gives you purpose? How will others tell your story?

Love in the time of sentiment

It was after I had struggled a while with the thought of going through my accumulation of sentimental items that I encountered a novel idea brought to me by a new friend. While the things I had saved and stored over my lifetime would not allow me to share the happiness I lived, it would enable me to tell the stories of the love from my life. Sharing the story that was prompted by my treasured item would go much further in depicting the love and warmth it brought me than handing down a naked item with no sense of value or purpose in the hands of another. The story, the sharing of a bit of my soul with the important people in my life, would allow me to pass forward the lovely fragrance of my grandparents’ patio orange tree or the tastiness of my mother’s quiche in ways a picture or knickknack could not.

As the oldest sibling of a small family of divorce, my early memories of my childhood contained some emotional nuggets that over time, became polished in the recollection of my sister and me. As we grew into adulthood, the bad times fell away and our favorite experiences took on a new fondness as we tried to share them with our children and other special people in our lives. Once our parents died, the realization that no one else would understand these special memories scared me. I wanted my children to appreciate people they had never met, homes they’d never seen, and wonder they hadn’t experienced. Unrealistic as I was, I became overwhelmed with the guilt that an entire family’s story would go untold, and determined it was up to me to ensure that my parents, my grandparents, and their ancestors before them were not forgotten.

I saw my salvaged, sentimental things as a way to pass this on to my children. Little did I understand that a doll in the hands of a little girl is just a doll. No history. No sentiment. No curiosity. Just a doll. I could not accomplish the feat of having my family story not forgotten unless I told it myself. Unless I found a way to share the love and memories myself in ways my family could appreciate. It may seem silly to those who grew up with their extended family surrounding them. However, for those of us who had no large family gatherings, no family traditions to speak of, or may have survived the break up of family through divorce, we want to hold on to things that give our experience meaning. We keep the little things that accompany us through life because they are ours and serve as witness to our story because there may be no other who can do this.

So now, I am going through my long held knickknacks asking myself, “What story do I need this to tell? How do I use this item to reinforce the fabric of my family quilt?” This will be challenging for me. It will require thought and care, but I am certain that my love in the time of sentiment will make its way into our hearts. Our holidays, our gatherings, and our time together will never be the same.