A Thanksgiving Challenge: Make Time to Find Your Family’s Stories Before It’s Too Late

Thanksgiving is a spectacular holiday. It's a time to recognize the myriad blessings in our lives, to celebrate with delicious dishes, and to gather around the table with those we love. It's easier to make casual conversation than to delve into something deeper, easier still to turn on the television, to constantly glance at our ever-present phones. This year, I have a challenge for you: put all those distractions aside and take the time to get to know your family. 

I'm sure you're scoffing now--of course you know your family. Chances are you've known these people your entire life, but there will come a time when your great-grandparents, your grandparents, your parents will no longer be seated at the family dinner table. This isn't a maudlin or morbid thought; it's a fact of life. What will you say about these people, these people you've held so dear, when they've gone?

Family photographs are a treasure. I think you should take as many as often as you can, and save them someplace safe. Photos are a wonderful thing, but they aren't enough.

I want you to take the time to talk to your family this holiday season. Really talk to them. I want you to ask your grandaddy about the first record he ever bought. I want you to ask your grandmother how fast her first car could go--if she rolled the windows down, wind in her hair, singing along with the radio. I want you to ask your grandparents how they met, when they knew they'd fallen in love. Ask your daddy about his first job, his favorite course in college, how he felt the first time he held you. Ask your mom about her favorite books, her favorite movies, how she felt the first time she saw you.

There are so many stories, and they all lead to one thing: you. You are here on this planet because of those people, just as your children are here because of you. These stories, their stories, are as much a part of you as your genetic code. You need to hear them, to write them, to save them--before it's too late.

Before a few photographs are all you have left.

My kitchen is filled with mementos of two beautiful, strong, good Christian women: a few dishes here, a tea towel there, a rose-colored Depression glass tea pitcher and six glasses. I have necklaces and costume jewelry. I have a few photos and a great deal of heartache.

I was blessed to have both my great-grandmothers (on my Daddy's side) in my life through my early adulthood. I visited them at Thanksgiving and Christmas, eating pecan pie and making small talk. I guess I thought they would always be there... and then they weren't.

All that time. All those holidays and family dinners and chances to get to know them--I let it all pass by for trivial reasons I can't recall.

I sit here now and think of all the things I never thought to ask them--what it was like to get by during the Depression or buy groceries with ration cards during WWII, how they felt when they met and fell in love with their husbands. I'd love to ask them about the first thing they ever watched on TV. I'd get them to tell me about the funniest things they'd ever seen, times their sides ached from laughing. I'd ask them to tell me of their deepest sorrows and their greatest joys.

I'm here because of my great-grandmothers, and all I have know are fading memories--and a few stories. I may have never thought to ask, but thank God my grandparents told me.

My grandmother Durham (my Granny's momma) and her husband used to buy bottles of Coca-Cola and leave them on their front doorstep early on the morning of Christmas Eve, watching their daughters bounce down the steps to gleefully retrieve their first "Christmas Eve Gifts." She loved strawberries and went to Bellvue Methodist Church.

My Maw-Maw (my Paw-Paw's momma) worked in the Dwight Cotton Mill. One cold morning the exhaust pipe of their pot-belly stove snapped; she caught it with her bare hands before it landed on her baby girl. She loved Jesus, Readers Digest, and made the best fried pies I've ever tasted. My Dad says I have her nose.

This Thanksgiving, I want you to sit down with your family. Just talk. Ask them anything you want to know. Record your conversation. Write it down. You're learning their stories, your story, the story that will become your child's and then their children's.

Get these stories. Save these stories. Tell these stories.

Before it's too late.