Forget Memoirs

There comes a time when your grandkids, if you have them, begin to drift off into their own lives and their visits are token. It's all quite natural. You remember when once your own life became so big, there was little time to do anything else but it. But the days of holding their little hands and telling them family tales and tucking them into bed with a kiss, are not wasted. Those times have already become part of their lives even if they are not aware of it now. It's all to the good. But before you get to the end of your life's trail, you want them to know who you were. Writing a memoir is not about dates and places, it's about how you felt about what you did and where and how you did it. Be honest. It's not about recounting the illustrious - or not - history of the family. Let's face it, no matter how many hours you spend gathering up a whole raft of names and dates called genealogy, hard as it is to do, it is not what is interesting to read about. Truly. That is something you pick up, browse and put down. It's only history and two dimensional and does not resonate. Write about the you that is you. That's what your family wants to hear. Reading what you felt and what you were, may be a surprise to your grand children. This is the stuff they will remember, not the string of dates and names in the genealogy. Tell your life - their reference from now on - how you felt about your parents and grandparents and why, tell them about your schooling and how that went, tell them about your marriage truths and about their parents and what really occurred with them, tell them about the love or not you had for your mate or mates. Tell them the raw story. It will enlighten, not destroy. You owe them truth.  Tell it like it is. You'll be dead when the memoir falls into their hands so let the chips fall where they may. Chips start a fire and family is about warmth and closeness. These days we cover up our lives with imaginative over-sweet frosting all decorated with falseness,  to hide the bare truth we are so afraid of.  It is our duty to be honest, to be frank and to be what we truly are - or were. Forget organizing and chronologicalising and just write those stories but make sure they are not fiction. Put them together in a box somewhere to be discovered and when you're gone, let your family know the real you that is part of the real them.