The Truth About Our Grandfather’s Boring Stories
Why does it matter to them?
Why should we start this story with ‘I’ while it can start with ‘you’?
When was the last time you had a conversation with someone? Not just an average conversation, and not just a regular someone. It’s something that you would never tell people that doesn’t hold a special place in your heart, it’s someone that wouldn’t see you as a lesser person even for the most absurd story ever.
When I was a kid, my grandfather kept telling me the same story, again and again, the same story of how he was assigned to a special regiment in order to defend my country, with the same plot of how he took his bayonet in order to survive. He was so proud about it, but I was bored — I guess it happens, just like rewatching the same movie over and over.
As the number on my birthday cake slowly adding, I have seen and experienced more of things, simple things became complicated and somehow, complicated things suddenly became simple. I realized that it is the reason we exist in this world — To tell our stories and make our legacies.
That’s what makes a home feel special, where a daughter telling her mom about things that embarrassed her in school, where a father taught his son how to shave, or a grandmother opening a dusty album, remembering how fast time flies.
We realized that telling stories isn’t just something to do while waiting for the cinema door to be opened, nor to skip the time while we are on the commute. It’s why the word ‘reunion’ feels so special or having a partner in your life who stayed on your best and worst days is within everyone’s dream. We are tied by the invisible strings, with people that we dearest, who hold our stories to continue our legacies.
Everything that happened in the last two years was beyond our expectations, we didn’t move a lot and our favorite spots in the city were lingering in our minds. But we also learned from it that love does not limited by space nor physical places, it has transcended any rational things or any limitations that we had in our minds.
People still telling stories, bound by the trust that only time could create. Writers write, singers sing, and lovers talk, whatever might be your love language, you shared them with someone special — With people that we tied by the invisible strings. We are eager to meet that special someone because we have stories to tell — About things that lift your spirit or things that break you, and made the night a little bit longer.
We are often blinded by selfishness and forgot that people need to have listened too. The thing about the invisible string, it’s doesn’t work one-sided, you have to give in order to receive, and our abilities as human beings shouldn’t be limited by any unfortunate events in the past. To draw closer with our beloved ones, to invest a few minutes listening to someone else’s stories, knowing that life has been rough for everyone, knowing that everyone is also struggling, knowing how it felt to be unheard — Having voices with no ears to listen.
As Greg McKeown once said.
We choose and tell the stories of how we wanted to be remembered in this world, something to describe us when we can’t even describe ourselves anymore, no souls are immortal, but the stories are always passed on.
Now after years, he had gone, I’m starting to find my grandfather’s war hero story interesting, I realized that there was an invisible string between us, and it wasn’t just a random story that he picked, it was how he wanted to be remembered by me — As a war hero. And I’m here to pass on his legacy to whoever reads this.
