Storytelling

My Grandfather and me

Being a storyteller is a dying art.

There is a deep and powerful tradition of storytelling throughout human history.  People would gather around fires, in dining halls, cabins, and numerous other places to hear a great yarn, or to spin one.  Stories were how people communicated history, identity, dreams for the future, rules to live by and countless other things.  People always have their own ideas as to what quality is MOST human.  Personally I think it’s our ability to tell stories.  Other animals use tools, pass on knowledge, require companionship and have some sort of social hiearchy.  Other animals feel/show pain, joy, love.  Other animals communicate through amazing means.  But I don’t see any of them gathering around to tell stories.  Granted, I’m not entirely convinced they don’t…especially whales and elephants…I mean what else are those big mammels going to do with all their free time…but anyway…

Stories are how we pass on religious truths, family traditions, the importance of heratige, and yet…all too often as a society it seems that we defer that responsibility to others.  TV, movies, books – those who are gifted at telling great tales have a celebrated place, as they always have.  Their audiences are wider and tools flashier to be sure.  But is that the same?  Sitting in a darkened theatre with fifty other people, staring of moving pictures of other people having adventures, then leaving afterwards quietly to go on with our own lives…is that what we’re reduced to?

I tell stories to strech my imagination, to share hopes and dreams with friends and family.  I tell stories because I want to recount funny memories, share important thoughts, share beliefs.  I’ve often viewed my role-playing hobby and the ministry that I offer to be very similar.  Both rely on a sense of the emotional moment, appropriate use of drama and comedy, both bring people together and can pass on knowledge or raise important questions.  It’s one of the reasons I try to read to my son at least a couple times a week.  We end up talking about the story and what words mean almost as much as we actually read.  Sometimes I make up stuff too.  It’s the sharing that’s important.  That’s part of what’s missing in the stories we tell each other today.  Where is the sharing, the common bonds that bind us together?

We often hear phrases like “global village,” “common humanity,” “shared future.”  But what are the stories we tell to make it real?  How do we transmit the importance (if you feel it’s important…I do obviously) of these concepts to our own personal community?  One person standing behind a podium lecturing us changes nothing.  Repeated video clips of people requesting help, challenging us to change, encouraging us to a brighter future…they may help for a time.  But stories are what endure.  Stories are what remain.

One of the best moments of the last couple years for me, came at one of the most difficult times – the death of my maternal grandfather.  He moreso than almost anyone I knew lived a life of stories.  As the last day of my grandfather’s life here on Earth began he had been moved out to the living room in his bed, so we could all be near him and present with him.  He was unconscious for most of the day, but there, at the end he woke ever so briefly – my son got to show him the last picture he ever made for him as well as some toys he’d gotten for that Christmas.  I doubt that image will ever leave my mind.  My grandfather, a man of virtue, love, laughter and stories, creating one last memory…one last story, there at the end.

We are made of stories.

The stories we tell ourselves to get by.  The stories we share with others to define how they perceive us.  The stories that are told about us that shape others outlooks on us and our actions.  The stories that make us laugh, the ones that make us cry.  The stories that bring us hope, hope that, in the end, it will all mean something.  I love telling stoires.  I love hearing stories.  They may be the same stories over and over again, but sharing them with people anew, every time they’re a little different.  I think that’s one of the reasons I like stories better than movies or novels.  A story is a living breathing evolving thing.  Just like us.

I don’t know where my story ends.  I hope not for a while.  I’m not sure of how my son’s story will turn out.  I’ll do my best to share with him the stories that I think are important.  Others will share theirs.  Hopefully mine are funnier.  He is already making his own story.  And his story, our story is impacting the lives of many others who have tied their stories to ours.  We are woven together with words.  We are the story of humanity.  One of the greatest reactions I ever got out of my Sunday School class was when I told them they are creating the next set of Bible stories.  All of us are, every day as we live, breath, love and die in this world.

You are part of someone’s story.  Maybe part of mine.  Just by reading this, you slip in, maybe not say anything, but your passing is noted.  Your interest impacts somewhere.  Stories are strange and mysterious things.  They have a way of starting one way and suddenly veering off in a totally different direction.  But in the really good ones – it all ties down together at the bottom.

Below is my eulogy I wrote for my Grandfather’s funeral.  As you read it, ask yourself this – “What’s my story?  And what’s it say about me?”

It should be noted in history, that by common consent with tear-stained cheeks and bittersweet smiles, this was one of the best Christmas’ ever.  It seems strange to say but I believe Grampie would understand, and agree.

The love and support that has been shown to me and my family has simply been overwhelming.  Couple that with the stories, the laughter and the sharing that my family has done with almost all of us here…it’s been a long time since this many of us were gathered together.

I can’t define my grandfather, but I can share with you this.  Grampie was not a particularly demonstrative man with his emotions, especially the soft-touchy feely ones, but I never have known another man whose life was so full of love.  He showered us with it.  Me, the skunk, the prune, all the George’s, we’ve never doubted his love for us.

I was blessed with a rather unique opportunity in that for eleven years I got to travel with my grandparents every summer to various reunions, sorry family camps now, all over the country.  As I’ve grown older the memories tend to blur together but there are many things I still remember, like sharing the tranatuala with Phil among others, Grampie showing me how to shake out my shoes for scorpions, him and that bag of rattlesnake eggs, grammie taking me out swimming in Lake Huron.  Grandpa teaching me how to play harmonica in the back seat of their car.  Many more memories have been shared this past week.

With mom in the hospital a lot as a child I can remember spending lots of weekends with my grandparents.  Much of that time was taken up playing games, among them Carum & Crokanal.  That was grandpa’s and mine’s special game.  We’be break out the pieces and spend what seemed like hours flicking those small wooden pieces all over the place and oh how he’d jump and laugh whenever we sent one over the edge.  Many was the time he’d get a look in his eye and nod over in grandma’s direction as she sat blissfully unaware in her chair and then grandpa would let fly and it’d land right in her lap and she’d be all a flutter. Or driving with him in the car and playing tag the bumper with the car in front, or complaining about “female drivers”, just to get grandma riled up.  Of course I couldn’t talk about him and not mention circus peanuts and licorice.  Grandpa had a special drawer where he kept his bag of circus peanuts right by the bed and he’d parcel them out every time I came over.  I was also his guinia pig when it came to hot sauces and cheese and I have to admit, my own son has suffered some of the same EEEghhhewww and AAAHHHAHHAAH as I have over the years from gorgonzola and goat milk cheese to jalapenos and habenaros.

We are a left today with a legacy of laughter and love.  I’m reminded of that even as my heart cries because of something grandpa said to me about joy.  It’s not that joy means we’ll never have pain, it’s that we believe in the hope and promise of what’s to come in the midst of our pain that we may thrive and live with glad hearts and good cheer.

~ by jademark1 on May 3, 2009.