Preserving Your History

The National September 11 Memorial and Museum is collecting history by archiving stories from September 11, 2001. Everyone has a story from that day. Everyone was touched in some way, no matter where in the world they were. Add your story and make history.

Make History! Share your 9/11 story

Bookmark to:

Has the Mutual of Omaha Aha Tour come to your hometown yet? Check out their tour schedule to see if the van is going to be near you. They are going around the country recording people’s aha moments. Do you have one you’d like to share?

Here’s their definition of an aha moment: ” a moment of clarity, a defining moment when you gain real wisdom – wisdom you use to change your life.”

You don’t even have to record your moment in their van. You can record it at home and simply upload it to their site. Join hundreds of others and share your wisdom with the world.

Bookmark to:

Letterhead from the India Office

The letter was dated August 3rd 1934 and began:

“Madam, I am directed to inform you that the decision to remove your son
from the Indian Civil Service was reached by the Secretary of State for
India after careful consideration of the results of an inquery into his
conduct and the decision must be regarded as final. Owing to your son’s
health it has not yet been possible to notify him personally but this will
be done as soon as his mental condition has sufficiently improved to render
it practicable to communicate with him.”

A year later a letter from the Medical Superintendent of an English mental
institution concluded, “I am afraid I cannot agree that your son has
improved so much that he is fit to be outside. He still has many peculiar
ideas and is very irrational in his conduct…he has quite recently made
unprovoked attacks on other inoffensive patients. He resents control and I
am sure he is quite unfit to be in a private house.”

Hidden within plain sight in a carved wooden box on my mother’s bureau
these letters introduced me to an uncle I never knew existed. I wish my
mother could have have answered the many questions these letters triggered
but her fragile mind had locked secrets away long ago and she was never
able to retrieve them.

Bookmark to:

This is one of my favorite essays from the NPR show “This I Believe” entitled Listening is Powerful Medicine.  It reminds me of what a gift listening can be and how hard it is sometimes to just be present and let someone’s tale unfold. We need more people in our lives to say, as the old woman does in this piece, “Sit down… This is my story, not your story.”

When we interrupt or stir restlessly in our seats, we are taking our attention from our subject’s story and focusing on our own. We think we are just helping them along by filling in a forgotten word or asking them to jump ahead. “Cut to the chase”, I find myself thinking. But we are denying our subjects our full presence, our undivided attention.  And our desire and ability to be fully aware and present because our gift to the story teller.

Bookmark to:

Mutual of Omaha is running a series of ads about people’s “aha” moments.  This clip is about Bob, a man finally writing his memoirs.

“I always wanted to be sure the truth was told about my life. And I realized, the only one who was going to make that truth was me.”

Watch Bob explain his “aha” moment.

Do you long to tell your story?  Do you have a story that you would like to tell?  Make this moment your ‘aha’ moment.  Write your story, tell your story, leave your story for your family and friends.

Bookmark to:

John J Cosgrove with grandkids - 1968

My grandfather was a lawyer by trade but his passion was writing.  So when he was asked to record his first Christmas memory, he went to another room to write everything down.  You can hear in his voice that he is reading his draft. And you certainly can hear the precision of the lawyer coming out. “That was the Christmas when I was three years and two months old.”  Though it may lack some spontaneity, it would have been a shame for my father to insist that he do it without the preparation that he felt he needed.  Because, forty years later, I can hear who he was through not only his words but also through his presentation.  I can hear the prepared, precise, and measured man that mentored a generation of lawyers in writing and brief preparation.

It’s an important lesson to me again in how much meaning is conveyed beyond the words themselves. And how important it can be to let your subjects be themselves.

Here’s his Christmas story as he wished to present it.

Bookmark to: