Kia Ora, well hello there lovely,
Someone recently asked me why people write their memoirs and life stories and I had to pause, because in my memoir focused brain, there are so many reasons!
One big one is the value of passing on the stories of your life, so that children and grandchildren are able to make sense of who they are, as a result of their upbringing and their ancestry.
I find it endlessly fascinating to ponder what I’ve inherited from my elders – my grandmother’s nurture-through-food ways, my father’s fierce parental protectiveness, my mother’s peace-keeping, my grandfather’s business brain, the list goes on. I wish I’d gotten to know my paternal grandparents and I feel like there’s a whole raft of traits in me that came from them, yet I don’t know about them.
And of course, it’s not inevitable. Down through the generations we can choose behaviours and thought patterns to keep or leave behind, and we can make choices that shift the trajectory of our lives. But still, it’s interesting.
And to write a memoir is to leave our voice behind in story form, so we can speak for ourselves, and directly tell them who we were.
So keep writing! Keep crafting these stories for your loved ones, so they know who they come from.
And for those who have loved ones who are unable to speak for themselves yet are still with us – perhaps they’re in a rest home or are unwell and in care – I offer a service called Life Posters.
These are A3 posters designed to offer the most important stories of your loved ones, designed with some photos, so that people can easily get to know them and their history.
Watch the video about them here:
Write on dear one, because your story matters,
Charlotte x
Charlotte Squire 