A while back, I wrote for a local newspaper, and many of my favorite articles were the biographies I wrote on various people. The older folks in particular made me realize how amazing people are, and how we’ve all accomplished things in our lives; we all have a story to tell. From the quietest to the noisiest, the least to the most proficient, the simplest to the most complex, we all experience life one way or another. We all make choices and have to take the consequences, good and bad. Some choices drastically alter the direction we are taking, and other choices merely adjust the path we are on. We’ve all experienced life from our own perspective, seeing things from our own colored glasses and responding as only we could. We are all unique, all precious, and all full of memories of what we dared (did) and what we feared (didn’t do).
One of my favorite articles was on a gal who was nearing 100. She’d had a rather impressive life as a small-town woman of her century, and so it was an amazing tale – though she was pretty humble about it, and it took a bit of prompting to get details from her. She’d smile at me and then give me a little more. What was most memorable about interviewing her, however – especially in remembering her smiles – was that after the article had gone to print, someone came up to me and said, “Why didn’t you mention that she was the first woman to fly a plane in our home town?” I couldn’t believe she’d left out that very impressive piece of information. A woman pilot! Unheard of in her earlier days. I had a good chuckle and loved her all the more for her quiet (smilingly) confident humility. Stemmed not from a desire to hide from others, or to not toot her own horn, but as a person who had accomplished some things in her lifetime and could be happy in it without fanfare. It was truly a privilege to meet her.
There were a number of biographies that I was honored to do, and each time I did one I was delighted by the fact that when we look at someone, we have absolutely no idea what they’ve accomplished or gone through in life. Many people are walking miracles who have survived horrendous times or situations. Others lived lives of giving and were a continuous blessing to everyone around them. Some people have gone to cool places around the world and experienced amazing things – nowadays that’s not so surprising, but back in the early to mid 1900’s that was much less common, especially as transportation was slow. It might take you most of a day’s travel to do what we can do in an hour today. (If you know someone over 80, ask them about it.)
I clearly remember chatting with an elderly friend who’d been in the service during the Vietnam War and him telling me about his experiences surrounding that time, and how when they shipped the men home, they tried to do it in the middle of the night because of the protesting against the war. It sometimes became a personal assault on these men who were only following orders. The sadness, even pain, in his eyes spoke volumes. This gentle, kind man I’d known and respected for many years had been treated poorly for doing his job. He didn’t want the war any more than the protestors – he agreed with them, but he’d signed up before it had begun…the price that is paid to sign up to help protect our nation: war. For the right reasons or not. It comes. Another piece of history; another piece of a person that I didn’t know before.
It was really something getting to know the snippets of the lives of the people I interviewed, but mostly I learned to look at people differently. To know there is always so much beneath the surface – that we all have stories to tell, if we’ll just listen to each other. I also learned the important lesson of respecting everyone for who they are, where they are, and the choices they made for their lives. We don’t know what they’ve lived through or why they have done what they’ve done. (Sometimes, we’re not sure why we do the things we do! How can we expect to figure out why other people make their choices?) We don’t have to agree with the decisions they made. We have no business writing other people’s stories for them: it’s their story! Isn’t it enough to write our own? And if their decision affects our lives – let’s make the best of it, increase our perspective, our giving, our abilities: see the positive in it. Be better people for it.
Let’s strive to remember that no one’s life is meaningless and to never take anyone for granted. Some might lead more adventurous lives, but everyone has an important story to share. Maybe it’s about the love and antics of their family, maybe they began a local, successful business that they’ve since retired from, maybe they lost their business in the depression because they didn’t expect people to pay their debts to them but managed to grow past it, maybe they saved someone’s life, or maybe they were the first person to fly a plane in their hometown. Their story is made personal and real – and important – because it’s their story. Let’s listen with open ears and giving hearts. There’s so much to learn from each other, and how interesting is it to get to know who people really are? Let’s fly for a while in someone else’s “plane” and hear their story. It might just help us make a decision that’s looming in our own life.
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