Writing for Posterity

Have you ever told someone older than you that they should write down the story of their lives only to hear, “oh, no one wants to read about that”. Perhaps they do not believe that their lives are as exciting as what they’ve read in fictional novels so it is not worth putting on paper. Perhaps they are overwhelmed by the enormity of the task or the mechanics of the process. Perhaps they do not know how to treat sensitive subjects with the attention and dignity they deserve, & so they do not begin. You can do your best to talk them into writing things down, or you can offer to help, but if they are not willing, there is not much you can do to bring it forth. On the other hand, writing your story for your family or future generations is something that you have control over. You may have the same reservations that they do. If, however, you’ve ever read an immigrant’s story or even the writings of Laura Ingalls Wilder, you know the importance of having a record of the sum of ordinary days. What seems ordinary to those of us living today may give great insight to future generations that will help them move forward.

Where should you start? That depends much on the type of life you’ve lived. If you’ve lived in one location for the entirety of life, you may want to break up your book into time periods or periods in which you had different careers. If you moved often, you could break up your book according to geographic locations in which you lived. Whichever way you decide to divide the story of your life, it is helpful to divide it up so that you can focus on one area at a time. That focus will help you to be able to move forward or even jump between divisions easily if you would like to prioritize what you’d like to include. For instance, if you’re writing about your early childhood & suddenly remember something important that you’d like to include from your college years, you can just add an extra sheet to the college years and then return to the time period you were working on.

How should I write? People go about the writing process in several different ways. Some people find it helpful to write on paper before typing it out. Others type directly into a word processing program (or even on a typewriter). Still others speak into a recording device and write or type from that dictation. It does not matter which procedure you choose, as long as you are making progress toward your goal of writing.

How to deal with sensitive subjects? If you have difficult or sensitive topics that are influential in your own history, be sure to think through how you will deal with them. If it involves another person(s) that are still living, be sure to get their permission before naming them in your writing. Think about how you’d like another to treat you in their writing if you were in opposite circumstances. If you are still struggling with healing from something difficult, leave this section empty until you have healed. What you have to say will be much more beneficial to future generations if it is not coming from a place of bitterness. If there are health issues that need to be addressed or revealed, be sure to include them. Even if it doesn’t make a difference to you whether you had a particular kind of cancer or not, it could be helpful for those who come after you to have that information so they have a better chance of preventing it or fighting it. If you found something helpful in combatting a particular disease or even a certain temperament with which you struggle, be sure to include it. It may be a relief to those who come after you to have a personal story to draw from as they fight against those things.

Some people will only pass their writings on to their children or grandchildren. Others will go on to publish their work for the public to read. Whichever way you decide, be sure to include some photographs, letters or other supporting documents that you have for your work. If you quote anyone, give credit. It does not have to be perfect to be helpful. Sometimes people write their stories and family members or professionals edit their work and decide for them whether it should be published at a future date. Whichever way you decide, begin today to set down your story for posterity!

De-Cluttering & Other Free Gifts To Give to Your Children (and Grandchildren)

Let's face it, minimalism is trendy right now. Everyone is wanting to de-clutter, streamline, cut back & clear things out. Perhaps it is a commentary on our culture of “too much”. Over-abundance is creating extra stress & the more we accumulate the more stressful our lives become. There is so much that we cannot see what is truly important. The table is so cluttered that we cannot find our keys. So, in the spirit of minimalism, here are a few thoughts about what seniors can give to their children & their children after them without increasing the amount of stress in their lives (and perhaps help to decrease it a bit!)

De-cluttering your own space. Instead of waiting until the day when you may be forced to move into smaller accomdations, think about beginning to go through your things now. Get rid of things that you would not feel comfortable gifting to donation centers. Yes, they may have worth, or may be useful, but if they've not been actually used in years & are not donation ready, perhaps it is time to let them go. Gather important items, like family heirlooms, and photograph them. Make a small booklet with the story of each item & why it is important to your family so that when it comes time to move, you can show it to whomever is helping you & they will understand the things of value. Lastly, DONATE! If there are specific items that you know your family members could really use, feel free to ask them if they'd like them. If not, choose your favorite donation center & start hauling! Remember, your gift to your children is that they will not have to spend weeks wading through your belongings, trying to sort through the things that matter versus the things that don't. Anyone in that situation is bound to start throwing things out willy-nilly because they just CANNOT take any more sorting! Gift them with the task already finished & a home cleared of unnecessary clutter.

Another amazing gift to give to your children is a family health history. Take a few sessions to write as much as you can remember about your own health issues over the years. Also include as much as you can about your spouse's health history & that of your extended family. If you have it all bound together in one spot, it will be a great resource for them & their children. It can give them an idea of things they can do to prevent health issues in their own lives (dietary changes for pre-diabetics, for instance). It can also help them to understand what may be going on with their current health (if they notice post-partum depression listed or described by other family members). This resource would be free to give & could end up saving them tons of money in unnecessary tests if family health history could point in the right direction for a particular cure. It can also save them from unnecessary anxiety.

A will. While it may not be exactly free, making your intentions known is certainly free. Make a proper will if you can. Include everything important. Before you even get to that step, though, just having a written document that lets your family know your intentions can be a gift of itself. Let them know if you'd like to be buried or cremated, if you have already taken care of the funeral expenses or burial plots. Let them know if there are specific items that you'd like to go to specific individuals or charities. Having all of that planned is a wonderful gift to give, and while they may think it a bit morbid if you bring it up, they'll be terribly thankful when the time comes and they don't have to make all of those decisions on their own.

A memories book. Writing a book of memories will be a joy for those who come after you, especially grandchildren & great-grandchildren. Write down things that you remember from your childhood, your first job, your first car, how much you earned at said job, etc. The mundane things of life will be terribly interesting to those in future generations as they try to piece together what your young life must've been like. Of course, also include important events, dates, etc. Just be sure that there is a record of your life somewhere. It is something that everyone always says they want to do. Phrases like, “I should really record Aunt Mildred talking about the family history,” but rarely actually gets done. Gift your memories to those after you so that they do not have similar regrets.

Memories WITH your loved ones. If you haven't been with your children or grandchildren regularly, begin making opportunities for you to get together. Even if it is simply to invite them over for coffee & cookies. The occasion need not be grand, simple is best. If you live far from them, open correspondance via phone, email, or even (gasp) the old fashioned postal service. Connection is a gift that ties many generations together.

There are probably hundreds of things that you could give as gifts to your family that do not require a shopping trip or any money exchange. I'm sure you'll think of more. These are gifts that will be long term & will pay lasting dividends of peace of mind in their lives, and in yours!

Helping The Elderly (And Ourselves) Let Go

I remember as a 10 year old kid being asked to help an elderly neighbor clean out an attic she was unable to climb to anymore. It was a beautiful attic with large, floor-length windows in an old Victorian house. I was amazed as she requested box after box...knowing exactly where they were placed & precisely what was in them. I was amazed because that attic was CRAM PACKED with every conceivable thing that a person could want or need. She was sorting through things she hadn't held in 40-50 years. She was getting them ready for a garage sale or to donate to someone who may want them as she knew her time was drawing nearer. She had a terminal illness & wanted to do this service for her children since she didn't want to leave them with a burden of stuff to sort if she could still do it. Why had she kept it all? “Just in case I might need it some day.” Old games were kept in case she came across that missing piece. Jars were kept in case she decided to take up canning. Bits of yarn because they were useful. Rocking horses for great or great-great grandchildren. Trunks full of polyester clothing might be useful for someone to wear or to make a quilt, at the very least. Thankfully this attic was well organized & labeled or it could have been worse than it was. Most attics, garages & other places where we keep things are not.

It seems that many of us are compelled to hold on to material items. They are useful. You wouldn't want to set up house without a saucepan, a frying pan & a stockpot. The problems start to arise when a 2 person household has 5-10 saucepans, & the same amount again of frying pans & stockpots. When the amount of clothing is unable to be worn even within on year's time. When the pens dry up from being stored for so many years without use.

Oftentimes this is all accumulated quite innocently. Someone passes on their items to said person. That person, in turn, sees that the item is useful and keeps it around “just in case”. Sometimes this works in our favor. We've acquired an extra toaster somehow & our old one goes out the next week. Much more often, however, the items that we accumulate sit and wait for years or for never. So what's the harm, you say? If the items are just going to sit there, why not let them pile up? Because they DON'T just sit there. Every item that you bring into your home (basement, attic, garage, shed, storage unit) has to be thought about, moved around & cared for. If more items are added, then the previous items need to be gone through & moved around in order to make space for the new. It's all very mentally exhausting & time consuming.

The first step in letting go of these items is to recognize the mental room that you are giving to them. If you were to keep a tally of how many times thoughts like, “I should go through that” or “I should organize those” went through your head in a given day, you'd probably be surprised at the amount of head-space you're giving to innocent items lying around.

The best way to begin letting go is to gather all of the like items together into one place. Marie Kondo introduced this technique for beginning to put items in order in her book, “The Magic Art of Tidying Up”. Do not try to de-clutter one room at a time. Start by gathering all like items in one place. If you have 10 vases in one cabinet, a couple dozen downstairs, and several others scattered throughout the house, you'll never know just how many you really have until you gather them together. Books, for instance, should all be retrieved from various parts of the house & brought to one, central location for you to go through & cull that which is no longer useful to you. That does NOT mean that it doesn't have value, just that it's already served it's purpose in your life (or the life of your aging loved one) and that you're letting it move on to help someone else now.

Work through why you or they may have kept so much while you cull. Things might have been tight while you were growing up. They may remember rationing during wars. There may have been times of economic hardship when they or you had to use every bit of human ingenuity to scrape through & survive that time of life. As you go through items, be thankful that they had what it took to survive & help them realize that it wasn't the stuff that helped them survive, but rather the stuff they were made of.

Letting go will open all kinds of doors that they (and you) never realized were slowly closing. And it will bring you a bit of room to think about what's next & where you'll go from here. Enjoy that space. Enjoy that freedom.

Be sure to start with things that they are not emotionally attached to, then work your way to keepsakes. It's easier to deal with the keepsakes if you leave them to the end. Oftentimes the process of letting go becomes easier once we've dealt with the fear of not having enough. Letting go of all of the other items, also, has the added benefit that they'll have more time to devote to things like family photos, stories & memories. They will also have more space to display meaningful items-more time to contact those whom they've been to busy to reach out to for years.

Change VS Remaining The Same

Nearly everyone on planet earth has a hard time with change. Think about this it. For every major change in your life, what kind of pressure did life have to put onto you to make you willing to change? Sometimes a job gets so stifling that you finally make the big change to find something else. Sometimes our health goes downhill so dramatically that we finally start making dietary/exercise changes or finally go and see a doctor. Sometimes relationships become so unhealthy that we finally confront someone, walk away, or decide to talk to a therapist. In each of these situations, it becomes blatantly obvious that change is necessary, but even so, it take much time to work up the courage to take the step toward change.

I think that this is sometimes because nostalgia is so strong. There are things that should remain the same. The traditions & celebrations that we enjoy with our families bring much needed stability to us and for those coming after us, down through the generations. If we change careers every year or two, the lack of continuity can be harmful for the financial health of those who depend on us. Change is not always a good thing. Sometimes perseverance & an old fashioned “stick-to-it” attitude is the best option for our situation.

Growing old is a sticky spot to find ourselves in. On the one hand, our families often look to us to be the long-term glue that holds the past & present together. As we age, we notice that they look to us for cues as to when we should say grace at the table & when we open gifts. Our children & grandchildren start calling to ask about special recipes that we make at the holidays. And often, it seems, that just as they are becoming nostalgic about the traditions we've held dear for years, we're finding that we need to move on and change in new ways.

Because our children & grandchildren are growing older, we might finally feel the freedom to do some of the things that we didn't think that we could before. Maybe, for some, that means traveling during holidays. Maybe it means that you've decided you're going to get healthy mentally &/or physically & it brings repercussions in your family life. Maybe it's something as simple as saying “no” when you really do not want to do something. So how do you determine when things need to change & when things should remain the same for the sake of stability?

Consider yourself & others. Is the change that you propose something that is for the ULTIMATE health & well-being of you & the others involved? Notice I did not ask if it would FEEL like it was for their ultimate good. Oftentimes unexpected change does not feel fantastic. Examine your motives, then talk openly & honestly to the others that will be involved & move forward. If it is an extreme situation, or if there are addictions involved, seek counsel from a professional as you move forward. You may need their support in days to come.
Consider the children involved. Very young ones do not need to deal with adult issues that are going on. Do your best to ensure that their worlds remain as stable as possible even if changes are required. Figure out how you can carry on a semblance of normalcy through the change & help them to have good memories.
Keep important traditions. Determine which traditions are important to you & others you care about & keep them up. When there are huge changes (as in living situations) it can be difficult. If, for instance, you're moving to an assisted living community, but Thanksgiving has always been held at your house, work through where that celebration will now be held. You can keep the tradition while changing the venue. It may feel awkward at first, but you'll find a new normal to work from very quickly.
In everything, show love. Whether you decide that nostalgia or change is the way to handle a situation, be sure to emphasize that you love the other people that will be involved in the decision. When people are sure of your love it will make even difficult things go much more smoothly.