What I got from creating a Life Story for my family!

In 2010 I originally record the Life Story of my uncle for entirely selfish reasons only to discover that I could do so much more for others and myself than I could have every imagined.

In 2007 when I started Your Story I decided that I needed to take the time at some stage to record my eldest remaining uncle in my father’s family before it was too late and learn of the history that only he knows. But you know how it is? Life got in the way and the months turned into years only to be reminded from time to time that I needed to act soon but then again I became distracted. Well in February last year I decided that I just had to book a date to travel and make the time to sit with Bill or else one day it would be too late and I’d curse my procrastination. Fortunately for my family I did, as we now have all of his stories to listen to and share and fortunately for us he’s still in our lives and can share in his own Life Story and what it means for us.

What I wanted

I started this project with the idea of getting information. The people, places and understanding of our greater family type information. During the process of recording Bill, I did managed to get that information. Not everything, somethings he didn’t want to discuss or he’s forgotten but what I did learn was more than we had before so my initial goal was achieved but there were other things that I didn’t expect to come from the whole experience that possibly may be of more and greater value than just getting information.

As Jane mentioned about the unexpected surprises of what she achieved from her fathers Life Story there are things that aren’t expected that can develop from taking the time to record someone’s Life Story.

I managed to spend a considerable amount of time with Bill, which gave us an opportunity to connect in ways that we had never been fortunate to do in the past. You can’t rush someone in their late 80’s so we lived by the body clock that suited him, with plenty of tea and the occasional nap but over the days Bill got used to me being around and slowly we recorded the six hours of audio that became his Life Story. In amongst that time I scanned photos and documents from his life and spent some time videoing him around his home and interests. All of this brought us closer together and gave me a connection to him in ways that I didn’t expect.

What it means to them

As is the case with the therapeutic use of recording a person’s Life Story, things were shifting also for Bill. After I completed the initial recording his daughter mentioned that he’d said to her, “I don’t know why Ian want to record me, but oh well…”.

At the time the recording didn’t seem that important but I know he enjoyed having me around and telling his story but couldn’t see what we would see in his stories.

This past week-end it was time to bring it all together for Bill’s 90th birthday celebrations. All the usual family members assembled with his friends from the local community to wish him a happy birthday, where I revealed two videos for everyone to see for the first time. These videos you can see below are the assemblage of snippets of audio associated with the images that I had available to tell the visual story of his life along with a little of who he is today. We played these videos on the large screen to absolute silence bar the occasional sniffle and wiping of eyes.