A 100-Year-Old Story

The end is near. It has been nearly five years since I started writing my mother’s life history. She will be 100 years old October 27th. On that day, I hope to be able to present her, the family and friends with copies of her story.

At this point, I have realized that I will only be able to write about the first 30 years of her life. She had lots of events that need to be written about, but the most important one came when she was 30 years old. I was born.

And since I am the author, I believe I have what is called poetic license. No one wants to read that someone is born, their life speeds by like a bullet and then they have gray hair and wrinkles.

At first, it seemed pretty simple, but as the days, months, years have gone by, well, it is not as simple as I thought to compile information, memories, pictures and documents that are important to her life. Going back that many years to capture the essence of a life is not easy. Luckily, I can just pick up my phone and call her since she still remembers most of those years.

Of course, you can only skim the surface when there are that many years in a person’s life. To capture the thoughts and memories, first there was a notebook, then pictures were added, each conversation there was a little post-it note to remember a story, then all of these things were put into a tote bag, then a box, then a larger box and now it is spread around me in piles.

As a child, a teenager, then going off on my own, I didn’t know of her story. Life was all about me. That is, until I started to write about her.

In the end, I discovered a lot of things about my mother and myself. She is impulsive and more of a gambler than I would have ever believed. She lived, no survived, a poor childhood, two world wars, the Great Depression, having and raising to adulthood four children and countless happy and sad moments, in fact, 36,500 days and next month will mark her 100th trip around the sun.

Over the years of interviewing folks, I have discovered that everyone has a story. Will you be the one to tell the story of a family member or friend?