Some of you may have read my blog recently about my son’s adoption albums and the importance of journaling our stories. As I write this blog, I’m starting another major project based on my father’s family history. As background, my father was born in Ukraine in 1938 during a time that was controlled by Stalin and the Nazi Party. So many people were terrorized from war, famine, and death. The first 12 years of my father’s life was in prisons or slave labor camps until he arrived in American in 1950 after being liberated from the last German slave labor camp with his mother and 3 siblings. Unfortunately, my grandfather did not live to see his family survive this horror and start their “new life” in the United States.

I can’t comprehend a childhood that didn’t include proper schooling, basic food, or clothing; let alone a childhood with bombs going off and people being shot in front of you. And, despite their horrific living conditions, they had love and strength, both of which is the core of who we are as a family today. As long as I can remember, I would ask my dad about his story but he refused to speak about it. I couldn’t comprehend why he would not share until one day when I was still a teenager he said “Why would I want to remember things that are so horrible? I don’t want to relive any of that.” I don’t recall ever asking about it again…ever.

Unbeknownst to me, about 30 years ago my father had unanswered questions about his past and asked his mother if he could interview her. He recorded her memories on 42 audio cassettes. Those interviews were in Ukrainian and as my father got older, he had hoped that one day he would write a memoir of their history. As the years passed, my father never made much progress on his dream and now that he is 82 and living with dementia, his dream seemed to be nothing more than an unattained goal of a much younger man. I became aware of those tapes about 20 years ago but never asked because of the pain I knew it caused when I had questions about our family history.

Fast forward to current day, my parents live with me and my son. They know how passionate I am about memory keeping. About a year ago, I asked my father if he still had the tapes. My father graciously gave me the tapes because he was about to discard them since he had no use for them and no machine to “play” the tape. To him they were worthless. I immediately sent them to FOREVER® in my very first conversion box to be digitized. The audio recordings are all now safely stored in my account with only one of the tapes too damaged to convert. While I couldn’t understand what was being discussed, I love to listen to the voice of my grandmother who passed away 15 years ago. My dad always said I was just like her, strong mentally and strong in faith. I have a special connection to her and sometimes I just open an audio file on my iPhone and listen to her voice. It brings me comfort and keeps me close to her memory.

My father assumed nothing further would happen with those tapes because I do not speak or understand Ukrainian. But over this past year, I had all of the tapes transcribed into English through a freelancer. All of those transcriptions were converted to PDF and are now stored in my account along with the audio tapes. But what I realized was the story was incomplete. Many of the details and missing pieces reside in my father’s memory, which is fading as he ages. He shared that he only asked my grandmother about those stories that he couldn’t remember so without his memories being shared, our history was still incomplete. He knew that I had read all of the transcripts and had a better understanding of their difficult journey and horrific years between 1935-1949 and that opened a door for us to begin to talk more, but most of the time he gets very emotional and I can only get small nuggets of information. I did learn that I was named after my father’s mother who was murdered in her early 20s during those early years of war. Imagine, at 54 I didn’t even know I was named after my grandmother or the tragedy of her death.

A few weeks ago, my father came into my craft room and said he wanted to give me all of his photos and papers. Of course, I was thrilled, but I had no idea the gift I was about to receive. After all of these years of not speaking of the past, he agreed to allow me to tape record him telling the stories and allow the photos he shared to be full of life again, no matter how difficult that life was for the faces and people that I did not recognize in the photos. I have categorized all of the photos and have 4 conversion boxes in Green Bay as I type! I have recorded many stories with my dad over the last 3 weeks and he agreed to continue to record every week, although he chuckles because he doesn’t understand why I would want to hear such things. My father also has a very distinguished military career in the Air Force with hundreds of combat missions during the Korean and Vietnam wars. This has been another topic my father has refused to speak about, until now. These recordings are EXTREMELY painful to him, but I feel with his dementia he is well aware of the need to record what he can while he still can or it will be lost upon his death or if the dementia progresses fast. The best part is I’m able to store the recording immediately to my FOREVER® account and I have transcribed each recording which I will use to journal for my future family heritage albums.

During one of our recordings, he gave me two artifacts that I could never have guessed were in my father’s office in our house. First, my father gave me my grandmother’s German labor camp identification card. It has her photo, fingerprints, and information on the back in German. When he handed it to me, I couldn’t speak a word and I allowed the tears to flow down my cheeks. I was holding something my grandmother and grandfather once held… and by the grace of God has survived for 70 years. I put my fingers on top of her fingerprints and felt like my soul was touching her soul instantly. If it wasn’t so fragile, I think I would hold it for the rest of my life. And it can never fade or be lost in a fire or other disaster because it’s safe and sound in my FOREVER account.

My father then gave me a very small photo of a boy and I asked, who is this? He said laughing “that’s me”! I think I stopped breathing as I squinted to look closer at the little boy who looked so small and had such sad eyes. I don’t remember how much silence passed before he shared that the camp guards were extremely cruel but there was one guard that seemed to like my father and took his photo. This photo has also traveled 70 years and landed softly into my shaking hands. I’ve never seen a photo of my father as a child and assumed none existed. I could stare into those sad eyes all day long.

As the evening recording was wrapping up, we came across a very small piece of paper with dad’s Ukrainian handwriting and as my dad read, he started to sob and had to leave the room. He came back a little later to explain that he and his mother used to sing together and these were lyrics to a song that they sang all the time and it always reminded him of the love between his mother and his father. He could not explain much more due to being overcome with emotions so we ended for the iPhone night. About an hour later as we were all getting ready for bed, my father came in my room with such urgency saying “I remember… I remember!” I didn’t have a clue what he was talking about and before I could ask, he said “where is the recorder?” I grabbed it quickly, still confused, and he said he was having a moment of clarity and would like to sing the song and asked if I would record him. I don’t even recall if I responded but I did hit record. He sang perfectly and intimately into the tape recorder. When he fell silent and I stopped the recording, he said “I had to do that while I could remember the song as sometimes things come back for a moment before I forget again.” I now have my father singing so beautifully stored in my FOREVER® account. As I reflect on this, I’m not certain whether he was recording for me; or, whether he wanted it so he will never really forget this song because I can play it for with in an instant with my iPhone FOREVER® app. I haven’t played it back yet myself because even for me this is extremely emotional. But I know when I’m ready or if he needs it, we have it instantaneously.

Over the last few weeks, we have cried lots… we laughed some… and he has to take many breaks because it becomes too overwhelming. He gets frustrated when his memory fails him and I will continue to be gentle and patient. No matter how painful, this is why FOREVER® is so important to me. It gives me the tools I need to secure our history for my son, my parent’s grandchildren, and generations beyond. Am I overwhelmed by this project? Yes. Does it scare me a little to open these deep buried wounds? Yes. Am I going to complete this project? Absolutely. It will be worth every hour and every tear I invest to capture the information, store it all in my FOREVER® account, and eventually create family heritage books that I can share with my brother, cousins, and future generations.

What story do you need to tell? Whether it’s a significant project like this, or a smaller project in scope, I can promise you it’s every bit as important and I encourage you to start today. As we all know, tomorrow is not promised. I have no idea how long my father will be with us, and there is no time like the present. Embrace and capture your stories, whether tragic or happy, and make it last a lifetime.