Opening up the local paper online this morning, on route to
the days obituaries (I’m not morbid, it’s actually part of my job) I was
surprised to see a familiar face. Dave Lewis, a former teacher of Rebecca’s.
His story was main stage, the headline: ‘Kitchener
Man Remembers a Plane Crash Tragedy, 50 Years Ago Near Montreal’, a picture
accompanied of Dave sitting solemnly in his living room holding a book ‘Voices
from a Forgotten Tragedy’
I read through the account of Dave’s Story (capital S
because it is his great significant tale) and was saddened to learn that at the
age of 11 he lost his father in one of the largest aviation disasters in
Canadian History. The article outlines the tragedy, shares some history and
details plans for a commemorative memorial being held this week in Quebec. (I
invite and encourage you to read it here) Dave’s Story touched my heart and
drew me in, partially I am sure because he is someone I have known but more so
for that very same reason. He is someone I have known.
Does that make the story more compelling and relatable? To
be frank I do not know Dave well beyond the part-time hours he taught my
daughter, so I would not expect to know his Story; but that he had a Story
never consciously crossed my mind. That is more to the point.
We forget that every single person we know has a Story.
While we are busy talking about progress in reading and comprehension we forget
that the person on the other side of
the conversation has a private journey of highlights and struggles, successes,
failures, great joys and heartbreaking tragedy.
Some Stories we know; the Stories of our friends (those they
choose to share) that connect us to them beyond casual acquaintances. Our
families have Stories; ones we are a part of, ones we’ve bared witness to and ones
we support one another through. Our children have Stories, some are big and
loud and exciting like learning to blow bubbles and scoring winning goals. Some
of their Stories are quiet and hidden like first kisses and liquor cabinet
raids. Our partners have Stories from their lives before we meet them that
weave themselves into our fabric and become part of our own Story.
The one defining thing about all these stories is that they
equalize us, don’t they? Our Stories are like flowers; each species has its own
virtue, each is complete and beautiful in its own entirety, in this way they
are the same. However, no one can say that one single flower is more beautiful
or has the most pleasing fragrance. That is unique to each heart that looks
upon the flower.
No two journeys are the same; my tragedy does not outweigh
your tragedy and make my Story more valuable. Your Joys do not out shine my
joys and diminish their value. They simply can’t, we have not lived on one
another’s Story to know and measure. In our Stories we are equal, in that each
one of us has a very private personal one, equal because they touch all of the
same emotions. The way a person feels sorrow or joy, the degree to which it
makes them ache or radiate is as individual as our fingerprints and DNA, there
is where the difference lies. How we feel our Stories makes us believe that we
live a more difficult path or a more joyful one than our acquaintances. If our
journey is one of great sorrow and pain, it is easy to feel we deserve greater
portions of sympathy. If our Story is filled with great moments of boundless
success and joy we may perceive that we have lived a greater life. How we feel
our own Story pits and ranks it against the Stories we don’t really have the
capacity to comprehend.
In our experience, in our view, our own Story is most
beautiful, most fragrant.
Our own Stories captivate us. Sometimes so much so that they
keep us stuck, reliving a passage or a chapter over and over. We become so
enthralled with living our Stories and creating our Stories that we forget that
others have Stories too and we don’t value them the way we should as unique and
beautiful flowers.
Sharing our Stories is a healing tool but it makes us bad
listeners. Whether you vocalize it or not, at the very moment someone begins to
tell you their Story your brain calculates “Ya, but do you know what happened
to me?” Put 6 mothers in a room and
start a labour and delivery room conversation and you will see exactly what I
mean. It’s so predictable it’s downright comical! Take those same 6 mothers
aside separately and ask them to re-tell a labour story they just heard and I
bet you they can’t. We don’t listen to understand, we listen to inform. We
listen for breaks in conversation to share more of our own Story. Rude to the
ultimate degree but so natural that we don’t even recognize we do it.
The end result, none of us really ever feels like our Story
has been heard. It makes us feel anxious and angry, frustrated and
disappointed. It makes the hurt last longer; it makes the joys feel
uncelebrated, makes sadness reverberate in our hearts long after the event has
come and gone. Most of all, it leaves us searching all the time to be heard.
Reading Dave’s Story this morning made me think; “How many
Stories am I missing?” And I realised, there is a beautiful gift each of us has
the capacity to give.
You can change how much you suffer by finding someone to
tell your story to and you can change how much someone suffers by listening to
their story.
What a beautiful thing, especially as the holidays approach
and people are overwhelmed with memories, joys, sadness, grief and longing,
what a gift to be the listener. What a gift I
have to give; to give someone’s story my undivided attention, to hear it all
the way through from beginning to end. To listen without sharing, comparing or
fixing. To, for the time of a tale, wrap attention around them like a blanket
around their shoulders. Be completely
present, riveted in the moment of their story and not mentally online or at the
mall or at my desk. To just smile and
nod and give them all the time they need. It’s a gift that, is going to take
some effort.
I hope you find this a gift worth giving and I hope you find
someone to give it to…. but mostly I hope someone gives this gift to you.
