I’ve played the seaside claw machine at Brighton Pier….
Watching on as the fluffy prize slips away, oh so exasperatingly,
Out
Of
Grip
This is accompanied by my children’s despairing moans, the sound of penny slot machines and the rustle of rain macs (because, yes it’s raining). Their eager eyes realising the undesirable outcome.
That frustrating annoyance at being…
So close and yet so far.
A few years ago, we lost our Dad and realised pretty quickly that we also lost a fair few of his stories and amazing memories that only he knew about.
Our Dad lived abroad and sadly most of the relatives on his side of the family are also no longer with us.
Even today, I realise that for a lot of his life stories, I have the equivalent of the claw machine’s brief brush against the prize of a memory.
Some of the details but not the substance of the full story itself.
This can happen when:
One of my kids asks me a question about him & I realise I’m not quite sure. (This happening the more as they get older).
I wonder for myself about key moments from his life compared to mine.
It’s not a nice feeling.
Sure, our Mum can help fill in some of the gaps but not before or after her life connected with his.
My Brother and I knew we didn’t want this to happen with our Mum’s own life stories.
But how to do this? We both have our own busy family lives.
We put our heads together…..
David with his background in running businesses.
Myself, having been a Speech and Language therapist & knowing the significance of what stories mean to people.
We had to make it easy for ourselves…..
And YourStory is the product of that well thought out effort.
A simple system that meant Mum could tell her stories as easily as writing an email, or logging in & writing her stories down, whenever & wherever she was.
Automatically collated into a full colour, hard-bound book.
Yes, she needed a bit of help with digitising the physical photos but who doesn’t like sitting down on a rainy day with a cuppa and going down memory lane with a printer scanner!
Let’s just say it’s a relief to know we’ve secured Mum’s stories not only for herself, but for us and her grandchildren too.
It’s brilliant.
We’re chuffed we’ve won the claw machine of memories this time and have a stick of candy floss to boot!
If you’re curious to know more about how YourStory works, you can visit us here.
Warm regards, Alyson.