Consider the Legacy your Stories Weave

My Father was a great story teller. He could tell the same story over and over again and because he was so funny, we never got tired listening. In fact, at family gatherings my sister and I would often beg him to tell this story or that one even though we'd heard it a hundred times before. My Mother was a much needed part of the audience because although my Father had a great memory for what happened, he was less clear when it came to when it happened. He dated most of his stories by saying that they happened just "the other day" and my Mother would have to clarify with "the other day in 1972". They were a great team.

Recently we had precious family in from out of town and we eventually found ourselves sitting around the dinner table, telling stories as my Father had once done, but it was not the happy time that it should have been. I sat and listened as people recounted tales of my childhood misdeeds that had been passed down to them. Stories about my colossal laziness, my cheating at board games, and all of the rotten things I had done as a child. At first I was a good sport and laughed along with them, admitting that I was indeed a bad sport and detailing my cheating strategies for "Battleship" but after about fifteen minutes of "and my Mom said you were so lazy that...", I began to wither under the negativity and I eventually excused myself and went upstairs to my room where I cried for half an hour. It was then that I realized why my Father's stories had been so precious. He remembered the very best things about his loved ones and it was only those things that he passed on to the next generation.

I learned a valuable lesson from that experience and although I've always tended toward my Father's style of positive story telling, that day with my family where I was the butt of many a joke made me decide that I would never tell a story that would make any of the people in it feel the way that I had or that earns its laughter at the expense of its characters. The tales that I pass down should lead my listeners to love the people in them as much as I do, to appreciate them for the funny things that they said or did, not to laugh at them because of their all too human failings, especially as children.

Before you tell a story, ask yourself this question; if I were the title character, would I want this story retold?