The Significance of Stories

Kevin Coolidge




Family stories—those tales told at gatherings that amuse, embarrass, and help hold a family together. I remember the story my uncle told me the war? There he was stuck in a foxhole with his back teeth floating. Nowhere to empty his bladder except for his helmet. It would have been fine, except the shelling started. Was that Korea or Vietnam? Or maybe that was Grandpa and the Battle for the Bulge?

I forget. I’ve heard those stories so many times I never thought I could, but now I can’t remember them quite as well as I’d like. I wish that our family had somehow preserved more of those stories we know we heard but cannot quite recall now.

I love a good story and I bet you do too. We tend to forget that we have our own stories to tell as well. We are the ones who must be the storytellers if there is to be a tradition of family stories in years to come.

If your response is, “I have no stories to tell. Nothing ever happens to me!” then take a look at Telling Your Own Stories written by Donald Davis. Donald wrote this book for those who long for family storytelling, but live with the misconception that they have no stories to tell.

Stories are about people, places, or events. There are stories to be found. The center of every story plot is a crisis. A crisis is any event which takes a part of our life that is familiar and comfortable and makes us adjust to a world that is different than before. It can be a heart attack, a fire, a new baby, or a marriage. A simple event may have more than a simple significance.

Telling Your Own Stories is set up as a workbook. The author has included prompts to help pull stories from memory. You can read the prompts in a family setting and see who comes up with a story first. You can use the blank space to make brief notes so that you can come back and work on the story more fully later.

Be sure that when a person begins to tell their story, that others let them tell it. You may have memories about the same event, and your memories will make a different story. The human mind stores all the impressions of our lives and experiences. We just have to access them.

Scary, funny, entertaining—stories are all around us. Stories give shape to our fears and our dreams. Stories hold our history and guide our actions. Stories can define us, teach us, and give us hope. Stories are powerful. The stories we create can help us understand the deeper meaning of our lives, and impart that wisdom to others…

Short on stories? Or the never-ending taleteller? Email me at from_my_shelf@yahoo.com and let me know. Miss a past column? I could tell you all about it, or you could just visit http://frommyshelf.blogspot.com and find out for yourself. Looking for the story of how Hobo the cat came to live with me? Read “Hobo Finds a Home” a kitten’s story of how he found a home, and a friend…