Stories

Around a month ago, Roger Ebert blogged about the stories we leave behind followed by another posting last week around the same theme.  I've been thinking about his posts ever since I read them...comments like this:

Nobody will be able to say how we sounded when we spoke. If they tell our old jokes, they won't know whose they were.
That is what death means. We exist in the minds of other people, in thousands of memory clusters, and one by one those clusters fade and disappear. Some years from now, at a funeral with a slide show, only one person will be able to say who we were. Then no one will know.

When my dad was sick, my parents went through all of our family photos and divided them up between the kids.  My dad wrote each of us the same letter.  His letter talked about how the photos evoke memories of pleasant memories, events, people, and more carefree days. In the letter, he ended with:

Earlier I alluded to the "strangers" in these photographs.  They need to be introduced, however briefly, and time permitting. I will offer such introduction at some future date.

That future date never happened because he died several months later.  Lately, I've been organizing many of my digital photos so I can reliably back them  up.  As I've gone through the photos, I have already started forgetting names and places.  Along with that, I keep thinking about people who have played an important role in my life or in my family and who will know those stories?  If I died tomorrow, would my family members know all of the people I have met in my professional or personal life who have made such a difference?  Do they care?  What happens when my generation passes on?

I need to start recording and organizing these stories so it isn't too late.