Write Stories To Me, Grandpa! | Page 8

ancestry who read the
story. She wrote that her father, who had passed along to his children
much of the lore and tales of old Japan, had told her another version:
In many villages of old Japan, the townsfolk suffered deeply and, often,
the extremes of hunger and cold. It was vital to the survival of the able-
bodied that those who were in their final hours of life be taken to the
nearby foothills and left there to die. This sorrowful task belonged to
the senior son.
So it was, indeed, that a dutiful senior son, at the appropriate time
imposed by illness and tradition, wrapped his dying mother in the
family blanket reserved for such sad occasions. He lifted her gently,
cradled her in his arms, and made his way to a sheltered place among
the nearby foothills' rocks and underbrush.
Lowering his mother to the ground, he kneeled beside her and tenderly
made his final good-bye. She listened silently, breathing shallow, eyes
closed. Finally, he stood, bowed deeply and, tears in his eyes, turned to
leave.
'Wait, my son.' Her voice was barely a whisper. 'Do not forget the
blanket. The day will come when it will be needed for another and, in
time, for you.'
TURN-THE-PAGE STORIES
A grandmother told me how she sometimes became part of a story to

her very young and distant grandchild. She wrote:
I audiotape the story and mail the book to him along with the cassette,'
she wrote, 'but there's more to it than that. In recording, when I get to
the end of a page, I talk about the illustrations on that page, and then
say 'turn the page'. He loves this part and tells his Mom that he wants to
listen to Grandma's 'turn the page' stories. When children are too young
to read by themselves, they can follow along independently when you
tell them on the tape when it's time to 'turn the page.'
RECORD YOUR ALBUMS
Inquiries I've received from too-faraway grandparents include audio
taping stories, family lore and anecdotes, especially family history.
Several commented that talking was easier for them than writing.
In my responses I told about the time and circumstances that I had
taped a commentary to our family's photo and document album, and
how I went about it. For almost 40 years my wife and I, and before they
left for college, our children, moved about the United States and the
world, working and living our lives. We had accumulated a fair number
of photos and documents over the years; they were important parts of
our family history.
During those active years, family archives were low priority. During
periods of relative quiet we reminded ourselves to organize our records,
add notes on the reverse sides of photos and important documents, and
file them away in albums. As with most families, my wife had all the
names, dates, places, and the why and how details catalogued and
stored in her mind. We thought we had plenty of time. We did not.
Months after the tragedy, when I was able to focus my thoughts again,
one of my many tasks was to gather the cartons, shoeboxes and
envelopes of photos and documents. I spread them across every
available clear space and tried to make sense of the lot. Many, from
past generations, were scenes from the early part of the twentieth
century and before. I separated the collection into two groups: Group
One: preceding our meeting and marriage, and Group Two: our life

together and those who became a part of it.
Group One went into albums as Part A: my wife before we met and her
side of the family, and Part B: the same for me and mine. I arranged
Group Two (our married life) into collections according to the places
where we had resided. The result was many sections.
Organizing the material in each section chronologically, I inserted them
into the albums and numbered each photo, document and page. I
identified each album sequentially on its spine with a gold foil letter
from a packet purchased at a supermarket.
Setting up my tape recorder, I opened the first album. Contemplating
the first two facing pages, I recorded what I was going to do in a
general introduction, then waded into the narration: photographs,
documents, and the flooding memories. Nothing fancy, low key, free
association.
The first volumes dealt with people of whom I knew little, so my
comments were brief and sketchy. When I reached familiar ground, my
remarks were detailed: 'Picture 4 on Page 12 was taken in August of '52
when we lived in beautiful downtown XYZ. Our house is on the right;
in the foreground is A, B and C, and coming down the walk is the D
family: H,