WHO WANTS TO START FIRST?

This week brings to a close the Fall session of “A Course in Memories: Writing Your Legacy,” an Adult Education course held at Williamson High School, which I teach every Monday from 4:30-6pm. It has been both an honor and a pleasure, and I look forward to returning again in the fall.


Teach is a strong word in this instance, as there really are no instructions offered. We are more voyeurs, listening to the lives of each student who cares to share their story with us, their classmates. Family albums have been spread across tables, pictures ripped from living room walls, and CD home movies played on my laptop. We truly become part of each other lives. I’m not surprised long lasting friendships are formed in that corner classroom.

Putting their memories and experiences to paper is an exercise in poignancy and tenderness. We are often moved to tears and sometimes laugh until we realize its time to go. Learning a history of someone’s life, glimpsing briefly into the edges of their hearts has been rewarding beyond words. Wars, romance, heartbreak, death; its all there, and then some.

Some students from the Spring session have returned to continue their books, which is a personal thrill for me. Hearing their stories read aloud is akin to watching a serial movie every week. I can’t wait to hear the next chapter. There is never any pressure to share what they’ve written, but no one ever seems to mind. Sometimes the information gleaned from their memories is personal and meant only for the eyes of their intended recipient. That idea is respected and encouraged. There seems to be a level of trust in the room, however, and long held secrets and private hurts are sometimes uncovered, surprising even themselves as they read it aloud. Voices hushed, tinged with sadness or loud with humor, we never know what we are going to hear – and that’s what is so rewarding about this class. There is no “wrong” way to do this.

Every week I hand them a list of ‘triggers,’ questions to give rise to a memory either long buried or close to the surface. It’s really like the proverbial “box of chocolates;” we never know what we’re going to get. But I know I am not alone in my excitement when I pose the same question that starts every class.

“Ok, who wants to start first?”

LIVING TIME PIECES

I wish that I could have thought of something poignant to say, something to commemorate their graduation day. But nothing came to mind.

“That’s how it is with me", I reminded them. “I’ll think of something later when I sit down to write it.”

It was the last Monday night we would be meeting until class began again in the fall. Would they be returning? They all said they would, unless death or family obligations prevented them. I told them to tell their friends and anyone who was interested in preserving history. I hoped with all my heart we would be continuing, for I have learned so much from them than they received in instruction from me.

They knew me from my weekly column appearing in the local newspaper, my byline “Stories From the Lake.” I knew none of them, but was quick to learn how fascinating a group of students they were going to become.

For the past eight Mondays, we have been meeting at Williamson High School to begin a journey together. Seven in all, we met from 4:30pm to 6:30pm for a “Course in Memories.” It was an adult education course geared towards anyone who wanted to write about their life story, a loose leaf binder full of thoughts and recollections to pass down to their descendants.

They wrote down their thoughts and memories after receiving their assignment every week, a bullet list of ‘triggers’ that might jostle a memory or two. Reading it a loud the following week also brought back a cornucopia of experiences they shared without realizing it.

Writers all, they had been teachers and business leaders in the first part of their adult life. Some of them grew up in the country, here in Williamson and never traveling far. Some of them lived in cities and others in different states. All of them were deeply affected by wars and the Great Depression, painstakingly recounting how hard it was or how scared they all were. Survival was key, and not as glamorous as Hollywood would have us believe. Some have children, both natural and adopted; some did not.

What drives them all is the desire to share their experiences and knowledge with those they love. They wrote as examples of how to get through hard times, to stand tall and weather any storm that befalls them. “You come from strong sturdy stock” they all seemed to say. “Stand up – you can do this, because others before you have as well.”

At times tears were shed although it took the form of a cold or an allergy. Dark humor broke the reverie of those who for a moment traveled back to when a husband died or was taken far too soon. A comforting smile and a knowing look helped them as they helped each other, laughing and begging them to continue when one of them would stop mid sentence and ask “Is this boring you?”

“Write how you talk” I urged them. “The reader wants to recognize that it is you who is speaking to them.”

One of them made paper graduation hats, black mortarboards that they put atop their heads and posed for a picture. When I had asked earlier in the semester if I could post their picture, they said no. But that night whatever reasoning they had were put to the side when they donned the makeshift trophies. They were proud of what they had accomplished and let me snap their picture.

I urged them to continue writing over the summer, because it is their story and it isn’t finished until they say it is.

I hope with all my heart they return to me again when the leaves of autumn are falling and the wheels of time are continuing to churn forward. The hours are moving steadily and I am so blessed to be able to sit and listen to these living time pieces, to hear the jeweled tick tock of their lives as they relive it and tell it to us.

That’s the best that I can do, for now.