I Was Here ~ Leaving Our Mark Through Oral History

I Was Here ~ Leaving Our Mark Through Oral History

Last week I received a letter from a ninety-two-year-old war veteran—written on his forty-five-year-old Smith Corona—which asked if I knew how he could go about recording his life.

He shared with me his highlights, his history, and it brought me a little sadness to see ninety-two years reduced to a page when that span of existence surely deserved a book.

Nevertheless, weeks away from giving birth to our second little girl, I knew there was no possible way I could tackle a project such as his while also working on my own novel and taking care of a toddler.

So I wrote him back with information for a friend of mine, who would possibly be interested in ghostwriting his story. After I mailed the letter, I smiled while remembering my husband’s grandfather Amos Stoltzfus, who’d also wanted his life placed in a book.

Grandpa Amos didn’t let his eighty years or Amish background stop him from recording his story through a voice recognition system that translated memories into pages.

He passed away before all of his life history could be recorded, but I believe it was the process itself that brought such fulfillment and not the satisfaction of having reached the end.

And then I wondered what it is about our human nature that causes us to yearn to preserve our past as a bulwark against the rising tide of mortality.

What drives us to create? What drives us to record? What drives us to leave our indelible mark on the shores of civilization? We were here; we were here; we were here. . . .

As a mother, I am aware of leaving my imprint on the world through my child and the child I’m about to birth. And yet, the need to create even beyond reproduction is still there.

Each day I sit on the front porch with my laptop and work on a story, it’s as if I am fighting to mold something larger than myself—something that will outlast the rigors of time.

And at times, though I am ashamed to admit, I miss having a day spread out before me to write on the front porch for six hours instead of two. I miss reading literary fiction instead of the thousandth reciting of Goodnight Moon.

However, when my daughter lays her reflective-gold curls against my chest and snuggles in deep while sucking her thumb, I begin to tell her a story about when I was a little girl. And in this oral history, I can feel the bulwark being fashioned against the relentless tug of life’s tide.

And the sweet simplicity of it is far more beautiful than any composition.