The old days

On my living room wall I have an old sepia family photo. Eight people, posing stiffly in a photographer's studio, stare solemnly into the camera. In the back row stands my teenage grandmother. She's about to leave for Canada with her mother, sisters and brother. They're going to join her father, who has prepared a home for them in Toronto. She'll be leaving her grandparents behind. Was she excited? Was she frightened? What sort of life was she giving up? I'll never know; I never asked.

I wish my old self could have reached out to my young self to tell me that my grandparents' and my parents' stories were important, that their histories mattered, that our lives formed a chain. But like many young people, I was focused on the future, not the past. My grandparents didn't make things easy. They loved us, but they didn't speak much English and seemed perfectly happy just to see us, feed us, and pinch our cheeks. My father didn't like to talk about his childhood, and my mother overplayed the Tough Times card. But I should have tried harder. Now it's too late.

Well, we're the old folks now. What should we be doing to forge the links in that chain? I don't have grandchildren and have no business giving advice, but here it comes anyway. So what if I'm wrong? The point is just to start thinking about how to share our stories. So if you want to launch the conversation but avoid stifled yawns, rolled eyes, and Boring Old Bat Syndrome in general:

• Don't romanticize the past.
• Don't tell them how much harder you had it than they do.
• Don't make yourself a hero or martyr.
• Don't repeat the same stories over and over.
• Don't tell them more than they want to know.
• Draw them a family tree.
• Show them pictures of their parents as kids, the goofier the better.
• Keep the stories short and funny or dramatic.
• Teach them old songs.
• Ask them about their own past, even if it was just a few weeks ago.