Tag: elderly

Always There Are the Children

Something devastating is happening, a bone-chilling, frightening thing.

The children are dying.

In this year alone, I have learned of the deaths of four young people, three of them children under 25 years old. All of them were from people I know; they were firstborns, the first fruits of their mother’s wombs.

It has made me reflect deeply on how we foster future generations while remembering old ones. As a history buff, I understand how easy it is to dwell on the past. However, I’ve realized that the past, present, and future are inextricably linked; if we ignore one, we disregard the others.

I had the fortunate opportunity to speak with my husband’s great-aunts this past weekend as we mourned the death of their sister, our grandmother. They are all in their 70s and 80s, so I asked them what advice they have for the next generation. Almost everyone said to listen to the elderly. Essentially, you should obey your mother and father. Today, many may refer to this as honoring the ancestors. Whatever phrase you use, the broad consensus is to listen to those who came before you.

Growing up on a farm, where they grew and raised everything they ate, I got the impression they weren’t just saying this because they were elders but that it was a genuine conviction in which they truly believed.

Growing up, many of us heard the warning: “Honor your mother and father so your days are prolonged on the earth.”

I think about the depth of this as I watch the children perish.

One of my favorite poems from Nikki Giovanni is “Always There Are the Children.”

For me, it is a reminder that we do not live forever in these bodies. We will pass on one day, but there will always be children. What we pour into them while we live determines whether there will be more Nikki Giovannis and Maya Angelous.

Unfortunately, we live in a world obsessed with two things: appreciating people only once they’ve passed and only once they have become great. Rarely do we recognize the process and honor the in-between spaces. Seldom do we honor the becoming.

This robs the children.

And the children are not just minors in small bodies; we are the children, too. We are also daughters and sons, and I hope that we learn to nourish ourselves in the same way that those who came before us were nursed, and that we do so early on, rather than waiting until we are thought to have made it, because we are born worthy.

“We prepare the way with the solid
nourishment of self-actualization
we implore all the young to prepare for the young
because always there will be children.”

-Nikki Giovanni

The Art of Storytelling

storytelling

When I think of storytelling, a familiar image creeps into my mind: an elder with the strength of several generations. Eyes covered with glasses slightly tilted off the nose, they nod slowly to the beat of a rocking chair. Their hands and knees are stiff with arthritis so it is rubbed continuously as the history of whatever crawls out of their mouth. And when it does, our ears jump with excitement, wondering how a single individual can be so vivid with detail. The story is told from somewhere down south under the roof of an inherited home, one passed down from generation to generation. A place where even the oldest relative once had his/her diapers changed, a place to always come back to and call home. A house in the countryside or a peaceful place in the city.

Storytelling has been around forever. It predates writing and has proven to be one of the oldest and most effective ways to relay a message. Stories have been shared in every culture for education, cultural preservation, entertainment, and for instilling moral values.

One of the characteristics of storytelling that makes it so powerful is the colorful expression as showcased by the orator. The tone of voice, gestures, creativity, and speaker’s point of view. I always enjoy a good sit down with the elderly in that I may relive moments to which I had not existed. Even in my mind, as I pass an elder on the street, I cannot help but fathom what today’s world must look like through their eyes. It is a silent and private game between that person and me. Quickly and excitedly, I create a background for them. Did that old Black lady experience Jim Crow? What was it like for her? Did that old white lady experience the first integration of schools? What was it like for her? As you can tell, it is why I love writing historical fiction. It is like getting inside a time machine and blasting myself into another world.

As I remember I was one day standing under a foyer at the Veterans Hospital waiting for my husband. Moshe. It was raining out so I was careful to keep under the hood of the building. An elderly white man came walking out of the building. His back was slightly hunched as he glided from one step to the next. “Is it still raining?” he asked, more so to the air than anyone in particular. “Yep,” I said looking into the sky. As he walked away, muttering a phrase under his breath I’d never heard but cannot remember accurately enough to share, I wondered about his youth and about how he would compare today’s world to the one he grew up in. Did he think the direction of things had bettered or worsened? I wondered.

Storytelling is a means for sharing and interpreting experiences. Stories are great teaching tools because, like love, it is a universal language. Universal in that they can bridge cultural, linguistic, and age-related divides. Although my image of the storyteller is that of an elder, storytelling can be adaptive for all ages. It can teach ethics, values, and cultural norms and differences. Books and organized / structured schooling are one way to acquire information, but experience has taught us that social environment and physical contact with others greatly benefit learning. It provides real-life examples of how knowledge is to be applied. Stories then function as a tool to pass on knowledge in a social context.

And since art is defined as the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, storytelling is also a form of art, producing stories to be appreciated primarily for its emotional power and for the beauty in which it is told.