What's Your Story?

"So remember, every picture tells a story." -Rod Stewart



I come from a long line of storytellers. Particularly on my mother's side. It has always been important to talk about those who have gone before us, as well as our own lives. To tell our stories. Stories of hardship and joy, of loves and losses. Sharing memories both fond and bitter.

When I was a little girl, on quiet afternoons my mom would pull out our enormous family photo album and with every page turn she would tell us stories. Her story. Of how she met my dad, the circumstances surrounding our births, talking about the homes where we lived and neighbors we had known. As we grew older, she would often pull out photos of her and my dad as children and young adults and relate more of her story-what her school was like, who the bullies were, boys she had crushes on and why, what it was like to grow up in a large family during the depression. To this day, I can't see a Rose of Sharon without recalling the stories my mom would tell of how she and her sisters as little girls would pretend the frilly, luscious blooms were ballgowns for their clothespin dolls.

For years when we would travel passed the house in which my father grew up, my parents would recount what the house was like before it became known to us as, "the hairy house". In fact, we would sing each time we drove passed, "when daddy was a little boy he lived in the hairy house". Now, the house was hairy in the early 70's because it had been abandoned for a number of years and had become overgrown with ivy and weeds giving it a hairy appearance to our young eyes. And although it has long since been torn down, I'm thankful we have stories and pictures passed down to us so we can know what that house was like before it became hairy. Without those stories we would never know the house on the bluffs overlooking the river where my father spent much of his childhood was at one time beautiful surrounded by trees and full of life.

I am so grateful that my mother felt it was important to tell stories. Her story has helped to shape my own. As an adult, I have come to understand how important it is to tell your story. My scrapbooking, paper art and this blog are a part of how I tell my story. It's a way for me to share with my children who I am and what is important to me. What brings me great happiness and what causes me heartache. What my hopes and dreams are for myself and for them. I want my children to know it's important to tell their story. To understand who they are and from where they've come so they can chart a course for where they want to go and who they want to be.

Each life has great value and the story of each life creates the richness of who we are as individuals. So, what's your story? Are you telling it? I hope so, for there's no one who can tell it quite like you!