Do you have go-to stories in your family that are told time and time again? I have several and here are some of the titles:

Ducks can run really fast if they think you have food.
We’re getting married tomorrow and the dogs have caught a skunk!
Why did Mommy throw that bottle of mustard across the kitchen?

My spouse, who grew up in Florida, also has some favorite anecdotes:

Hurricane Parties!
It’s a Twelve-Foot Drop from the Roof to the Pool

and my particular favorite,

Do Not Jump Twelve Feet from the Roof Into the Pool After a Hurricane Party Because it is Full of Giant Land Crabs

Our stories are sometimes happy, sometimes sad, sometimes funny.  We claim bragging rights on the smart things we’ve done and on the dumb things we’ve done.  The fish that got away, the flat tire we fixed, the roast we burned.  We tell stories to our kids at the dinner table, our friends at church, our co-workers during down-time.  (Really we will tell stories to anyone who will listen because we are both extroverts who can carry on all day if given the chance.)

Our stories draw us closer to the listeners because we are  trusting another soul with a little piece of personal history, and maybe they will return that trust with a story of their own.  It’s how acquaintances are made, friendships are strengthened, and partners are chosen.  We connect to others by opening up and sharing ourselves.

This year has provided plenty of material for a set of new stories. What did you do during the pandemic? Do you know anyone who became ill? What parts of your life did you have to pause? Did you go to work in your kitchen while your kids attended zoom school in the living room?

Our experiences now will make for some riveting accounts when we have put a few years between ourselves and 2020.  There will be heroines, villains and jesters, risk and heartbreak, cruelty and kindness, love and salvation.  We will tell our new stories, laughing and crying, until the memories are softened by time  and distilled into blessings. Or in some cases, cautionary tales to tell the children before bedtime.  “I had to walk miles to zoom school, COVID hot on my heels, uphill both ways!”

Although this could be an unusual holiday season for many of us, we will all do our best with phone calls, Zoom links and FaceTime connections as we brave this pandemic.   We must be patient and thoughtful so we can  stay safe and healthy.   We are wearing masks and staying home and working late and shopping early and  adopting pets and taking gap years and keeping six feet apart from even our closest friends and family.  And all of this will generate the stories for the dinner tables of the future.

Because when Thanksgiving 2021 rolls around, the unused masks are in a box in the coat closet and we finally gather together again for in-person holiday celebrations,  each of us will have built up a whole new arsenal of  go-to tales and those stories indeed, will be worth telling again and again.

May it be so.

Lorie Craddock
President, Board of Trustees

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