Stories Matter: They Breathe Life into the Dead
By Joyce Francisco.
When you think of a storybook, do you think of a children’s fairytale or a history book? Oxford Dictionary defines astory as “an account of imaginary people and events told for entertainment”. This textbook definition tends to perpetuate a perception that stories are mostly fictional, and hold no value other than entertainment. However, stories are not restricted within the confinements of fairytale stories and creepypasta fiction. They, surprisingly, reside everywhere –in our history books, in museums, in eulogies, and, on a more personal note, in my mother’s stories.
As a young girl, I used to wonder what it would have been like if given the satisfaction of having a grandfather. The deprivation of my grandfather’s company pained me. How many hours of my monotonous life could I have spent pondering over old pictures with him, babbling about the stories behind them?
Although I never got to meet my grandfather, he lives through my mother’s stories. Top of his batch, class president for four years in a row, and an altogether selfless man –he was the poster child of an extraordinary individual. While my peers want to become lawyers and doctors in the future, all I want is to be like my grandfather was. The way my mother’s eyes light up and verbalize vivid stories about him, it seems incomprehensible that he passed away more than 20 years ago. He may have passed away, but his words of encouragement will resonate in my heart until the end of time.
Time is life’s greatest thief. As morbid as it sounds, one day our bones will grow brittle. One day our skin will sag. One day our eyes will no longer beam with clarity. One day our hearts will retire from its humdrum job. One day we’ll be in a coffin lowered down in the grave. Will we all inescapably be forgotten? What remnants will we leave behind?
Subsequently, we all will leave an imprint in our loved ones’ hearts. The memories of us eliciting stories from our elders, reaching the ears of the next generation. Stories are timeless and have the potentiality to live on from generation to generation. With that in mind, may we live life to the fullest; may it be noteworthily bland, or blandly noteworthy. May the stories of us stay alive even when we are not.