Family Treasures

By Linda E. Austin

    Family memories are treasures that are legacies to our children. Those old memories make history come alive for us in a very personal way. It is genealogy taken a step further, giving us stories that tell us who we are and where we came from - so much more interesting than a name on a page.

    I feel lucky that as a child my mother freely told me stories of her own childhood in Japan. Since she had come from a foreign country, her tales were quite fascinating to me, but I believe everyone has stories that fascinate, if only because they delight their own families and friends. Our seniors today came from such a historically significant era full of challenges – the Great Depression, World War II – as well as great technological advances that took them from horse and buggy to automobile, radio to computers.

    Many seniors believe their stories are commonplace and not worth telling, but to the younger generations these stories tell of a time they can only imagine. When I grew older and started writing a book of my mother's life, she would get irritated when I asked too many probing questions. She felt no one could be interested in such mundane details. I had to assure her again and again that I was curious and that her grandchildren might like to know such things.

    Ten years passed before I finished this project, which was finally completed during a summer of frantic writing as I noticed that my mother had begun to rapidly lose her short-term memory. When we are young we think time will wait for us, but in truth, each day we live through is a minor miracle. Time was flying and my mother’s memories were in danger of slipping away into a fog.

    Finally, my mother was able to hold her own book in her aged and crooked hands as an 80th birthday present. She loves to read her story, relishing the memories of the old days. Her mind clears, her eyes mist as she relives bittersweet moments.

    Capturing my mother’s story is one of the most important things I have done in my life. This book, which delights my mother as few things do anymore, is also a gift to myself, my sister, our children and their children to come.  We will now always remember our mother, our “Baba Yaeko.” Sharing life stories is a way to bond generations together and a way to let the memories of a loved one live on, clear and strong, long after they pass from this life. So start asking questions. Don't wait until it's too late.

Linda E. Austin is the author of "Cherry Blossoms in Twilight: Memories of a Japanese Girl" along with her mother, Yaeko Sugama Weldon. http://www.moonbridgebooks.com