The Truth about Memories

I Think I Saw Him Yesterday

I distinctly remember stopping by my parents' house when I was about 25 years old and asking where my 16-year-old brother was, to which my dad replied in an off-hand manner, “I don’t know…I think I saw him yesterday.”

I found his unconcerned response absurd considering how micromanaged I felt being the oldest child at my brother’s age. As the years went by after this exchange, it made me laugh to think about how much things change from the first child to the fourth. When I retell this story, usually to elicit laughs at family gatherings, my dad has no memory of this conversation ever existing. 

Did it happen? Did I take a tiny piece of the conversation and build it into something else? Or maybe it just didn’t stick in my dad’s brain as something to hold onto. And the big question: does it matter? 

Does the Truth Matter?

My answer to that, in the context of life storytelling, is that yes, it matters, and no, it doesn’t. In my book, Memory to Memoir, I share more on this.

Here is an excerpt from page 43:

“As you delve into the interview and craft the story of someone’s life, remember that the “truth” is their unique experience and perspective. If they share their great-grandparent’s birthday and your research shows a different date, then yes, use the correct date. Concrete information is not an opinion. But when retelling their life experiences and memories, this content should not be altered and should be told as they remember it. Their memories are their truth.”

"I share this because I don’t want you to go down a rabbit hole when it comes to someone’s memories. Once you start editing someone’s memories, they are no longer their memories. Accept that the truth is subjective when it comes to memory. We all process our experiences differently, and that is what makes everyone’s story unique.”

Their Memories Are Their Truth

Believing that everyone’s memories are their truth is the cornerstone of my life storytelling philosophy. When a sibling, son, daughter, or spouse edits their family member’s story draft, I always recommend that they not alter the thoughts of their loved one. It is one thing to correct a caption on a photo, do a small grammar fix, or suggest rewording a sentence, but it is quite another when you insert your memories of an event or your feelings about something in place of what your loved one shared.

Another hard-and-fast rule I have in place is that there is no audience during their life storytelling interview. It is difficult for even the quietest observer not to interject, give their side of a story, or correct someone’s memory of an event—it is just human nature. 

I learned this the hard way when I was first starting out and interviewed couples together. Oftentimes, one person couldn’t get a word in edgewise; they were told their memories were wrong, or they would both get completely sidetracked discussing what did or didn't happen.

And actually, this is exactly what I love about interviewing a couple in separate interviews: getting both sides of a story that never quite match up perfectly. The first interview creates so many questions for me to ask their partner in the second interview. 

Beyond the Well-Worn Family Fable

A goal of storytelling is to get past the well-worn family fable. When I get the sense that it is a rehearsed monologue of sorts, I will ask questions to take the person off the story path they usually travel.

The stories we are so often told, and tell ourselves, aren’t always our true core memories, but the familiarity and cadence of a song we could sing in our sleep. Or maybe it's based on a photograph you saw sitting on a mantel your entire childhood that your family built a story around.

Sometimes it is worth the time to get past the rehearsed storyline or the long-ago imprinted photograph to unearth the real memories behind the tale. 

Perception is Reality

When a group of people is involved in a storytelling project, someone can get stuck on the idea that something someone said in the story isn’t true, that they don’t think it happened that way, or they question if it even happened at all.

My response, sometimes flying in the face of logic and facts, is: does it matter? In one of my first professional jobs, working at an advertising agency, it was drilled into my head that “perception is reality.” I believe this to be true in our everyday lives just as much as it is true in the advertising world. 

In life storytelling (and I would argue in life in general), what really matters is how something made us feel, how it shaped our view of the world, and how we choose to lead our lives because of it. Those are the things that come from the life storytelling experience. Those are the things that shape who we are.

I will leave you with a little story from my childhood that may or may not be completely accurate. 

Less Work, More Fun

In grade school, my school had the great idea to divide my 4th grade class down the middle and call one section “Group 1” and the other section “Group 2.” It was very quickly discovered that Group 1 was the smart kids and Group 2 was the dumb kids (as named by the kids in my class). 

And yep, you guessed it, I was in Group 2. How they could evenly divide a class of 60 kids and make that distinction is still up for debate. Because we knew we weren’t the "smart" group, it gave us the freedom to embrace being “dumb.” This resulted in very little effort being made by pretty much anyone, and for all of us to set the bar so low it was pretty much on the floor. 

By year two of Group 2, we decided that for every time we reached 100 pages in our math book, we would have a 100-page party. Kids brought cupcakes, napkins, and plates, and we had a fun party day. From my recollection, the teacher approved this. 

Because we had more fun and less work than those in Group 1, some kids from Group 1 tanked their grades to get dropped into Group 2. At one point, that one kid who always got into trouble found a way to perfectly time throwing an eraser up into the ceiling fan, so it ricocheted off the blade for a direct hit to the top of the head of the teacher, who was perched on a stool at the front of the classroom. And impressively, on his very first “live” attempt with the teacher in place. Pretty smart for a dumb Group 2 kid…

Needless to say, after testing this “group” method of teaching out on our class, and our class only, it was deemed a complete failure after we graduated 8th grade and was never used again! 

What are some of your favorite memories that you have been told never happened?

Best,

Maureen