Should You Tell Yourself Your Life Stories?

Why tell yourself your life stories? You already know them all. You have lived them.

When considering a life story legacy video, we think about the family elders and preserving their stories for the next generation. That makes sense. Saving those stories as soon as possible is extremely important. However, there is another storyteller you should consider and that is you. While your stories are important for others and the next generation, you might also want to save those stories for yourself. If we are fortunate to live a long, long life, our memory will fade to some degree ranging from relatively minor “senior moments” memory recall issues to the severe memory loss of dementia.

I suspect that you find such considerations disconcerting. I do. However, as I get older, I am reminded with increasing frequency that life can go sideways slowly or quickly as we age.

Look at it another way. How do you feel when you open an old photo album, or you happen upon an envelope of old photos, or you stop and look at the old family photos on the bookshelf? It can feel sad and good at the same time. It brings back memories of events or adventures, or most importantly family and friends. A life story video puts you in charge of the narrative associated with the pictures. You are the curator.

I had an insightful experience with a family elder who was in a nursing home for several months due primarily to physical limitations. His long-term memory was relatively good. We were able to have good conversations about family, his life, and sports. I had made a video of him about five years back speaking about his childhood. He discussed his early children years, his family, and some of his elders on the video. On several occasions, while visiting him at the nursing home, we would watch the video on my tablet. He enjoyed watching the video as he recounted some of his favorite stories as family photos appeared on the screen. I enjoyed the experience of watching him recount life stories. The experience transported us from the nursing home back to a place where he was more robust and fully in charge of his narrative about his life journey.

You may have heard about the use of memory boards for dementia patients. The boards features pictures from a patient’s life. It is intended to remind the patient and caregivers about the person before the memory loss. It is well documented that dementia patients benefit from life story reminiscence.

A recent article, 10 Ways to Use the Power of Photos for Dementia Care, on the Alzheimer Weekly website discusses the benefits of reminiscing with photos of a patient's life to “reduce social isolation and depression, providing comfort to people with dementia.”

A life story legacy video is better than a photo album or memory board since it will involve the patient discussing their life in their voice along with the display of related photographs.

You may want to consider a life story legacy video as a way to document your important family photos and stories. You may also want to consider doing your life story legacy video sooner rather than later. One of the first steps for creating a video is to collect important family photos for use in the video. I can assist you with the creation of a digital photo estate with DIY information or more direct assistance. For more information, see the DIY page on my website that includes a link to Cathi Nelson’s excellent book, Photo Organizing Made Easy: Going from Overwhelmed to Overjoyed, on photo organizing. Feel free to contact me via the contact form on my website. I would be happy to schedule a time to talk with you.

Feel free to pass along the link to my blog post page (www.lifestorylegacyvideos.com/blog) to anyone you think might be interested in information about life story legacy videos and photo organizing.

Regards,

Bryon