Life Stories

[BethU]

Capt. Al's hilarious accounts of his lawn mower adventures have inspired me to post this topic. I hope, Capt. Al, that you have printed out these stories for your family.

I think one of the greatest gifts we can give our families is to write down information about our lives, and our families, parents, siblings, children, etc. And this is especially important if you're a PALS, because there's more to us than our disease!

Writing accounts of our lives before we became PALS, our childhoods, schools, work, beliefs, etc. ... and also what we are going through now ... would be a wonderful gift to leave for future generations of your family.

If you're still able to type, you can devote just 10 or 15 minutes a day to recording a few facts. It doesn't have to be a big deal. Doesn't have to be a book or "great writing." Vignettes such as Capt. Al's are perfect.

And to caregivers ... I know none of you have 10 seconds a day for anything else ... but if you printed our your messages to this forum and kept them for your kids and grandkids and their kids, it would mean the world to them to learn about your heroic struggle in your own words.

Just a thought ...
BethU

 

[brendapals]

Beth,

What a wonderful bunch of ideas you have! I hope to print out some of these forum pages over the weekend to start a journal for my boys.

Another thing I want to try is voice banking. I will have to get my 17 yr old son to help me do it, but I really want my kids to hear my voice now yelling "put the clean clothes up and start the dishwasher, and I mean it!"

I just received a package in the mail today from my sister in law that has the original notes that my mother worked on in 1977 searching for her ancestors. She was diagnosed with MS in 1977, and I remember her saying she would start her family tree after she had to quit working. My kids are not as excited about the package as I am, but I'm still going to put it away with the important "things" I want them to have one day.

Keep up the good work, Beth, you are truly an inspiration in all you do!

Keep the faith,
brenda

 

[awieleba]

I found the web site shutterfly. YOu can download your photos or scan them in to the site. You can make wonderful books. It is the same idea as scrap booking. I have no talent in the scrap booking area so this makes things real simple. It has tons of idea's and sharing of books. I am going to make each child their own book update and then one for every year. I am going to do one of me and my husband for them, as well as one about me (mommy) from me as a child till now with insights about whom I am and life advice. If anything shall happen to me I want them to have these treasures!

I also started writing in journals and have one for each child. I am going back and writing the great and funny things down about them over years before I forget it all! Trying to come up to date and then going to write daily about our family like.

Its too bad that it took all this for me to finally do what I had been putting off. I think this will be wonderful for them later in life.

bless you all!

april

 

[brendapals]

April,
That sounds like a good idea too! I may have to try that too.

Another one the girls at work have talked about is snapfish.

Have a great weekend,
Keep the faith,
brenda

 

[rose]

Beth, this is such a wonderful topic! For the last year or so I'd been thinking about starting this. I want to write individual letters to each of my kids, and should have already done it. It has bothered me that not only should I have more about what is "me" and how I feel about my loved ones actually documented, but I'm the keeper of many family mementos too. Its just my brother and me in our generation. My mother is living (with my brother and his family) but she has lost much of her memory. I have these various items, jewelry that has been handed down, hand made lace, some of these have been in our family for over 120 years. Then there are the photographs and memories of stories told to me by my relatives as a child. Like BethU said, just little Vignettes such as Capt. Al's are perfect. If I don't document it somewhere, the stories will be lost and many keepsakes may end up in an antique shop and garage sale!

The photo in my member profile is a good example. My daughter is wearing a lavaliere pendant that has been handed down, both my mother and I wore it on our wedding day. I got it out of the safe for Bethany to wear for the photo this past spring, realized I did not know that much about it, other than it was "Grandma's" and came to find out that my mother no longer could remember its history.

Another idea I've had recently is to make "how to" videos of things we do in our lives that will irk us if its not done the same way (or close) after we're no longer able LOL. Seriously, if there are things we do, that we feel the method is important to continue doing, why not make a digital video of how its done?

Thanks Beth for a great subject

 

[CindyM]

My good friend, who is also my hubby, knows about some of the more interesting life stories I have experienced but my kids and grand-kids certainly do not. I started a journal a while back, just for this purpose. I wish my Grammie had kept a journal. She was a fine lady and her stories would be appreciated. Good idea, Beth!

 

[gimpydad'slady]

Really Great Ideas!

These are all great ideas. I have always been the sentimental type. More so now since the diagnosed of my hubby. I too recently discovered shutterfly and the books are amazing. I am a scrapper, but since I am now a full time caregiver, I cannot put the time into it that I would want to, and I find working with shutterfly works well for me. I work on it when I have time, save it, and come back to it when I can, and there are no scraps or sticky things all over the place when I am done. :-D I also started playing around with Roxie, a multimedia program for photos, music and videos. I have hundreds of digital pictures, and I don't want to print them all or scrap them. With this program I can assemble as a slide show with my choice of music. You can also do this with the shutterfly, the Roxie program is just a little more advanced.

 

[awieleba]

I love all these idea's. It gets me down abit, but I try to feel blessed that we have this time to do this for our loved ones. There are alot of people who pass suddenly and did not have this precious time to prepare the ways for thier children and spouse. This will be our greatest gifts to our loved ones no matter how long we live. * I also love the idea of the dvd with music! I am making one of those.

april