I have been creating and recording stories since my earliest memories. I love the feeling of a notebook and pen in hand and I always have. My preferred writing method nowadays is typing on a keyboard, but my love of words and stories has never faltered. My biggest regret is that I haven’t recorded more stories from the lives of dear loved ones who have since passed away. I wish I would have done a better job of recording their memories so I could pass them on to my own children.
My Aunt Norene
One of those dear loved ones is my great Aunt Norene. She was my mother’s aunt on her dad’s side. But growing up she was the only relative who lived near us (no one else was even in the same state). She helped our family through some very difficult times. Aunt Norene is probably the thriftiest person I have ever known (or will ever know). She was a child of the depression and never forgot it. She reused everything she could and repaired and repurposed things until they disintegrated.
Aunt Norene took it to a whole new level.
Before you say, “Yeah, I know someone like that,” let me give you some examples. Every year she bought Easter candy for us—not a ton, but she’d buy a couple bags and divide them up between us. But she never ever bought us Easter baskets. Instead she used the small, thin, green plastic square baskets she’d saved from buying strawberries. She saved cute little stickers and stuck them to small pieces of cardstock salvaged from cards she’d received in the mail to make us little Valentines. She maintained the same supply of polyester pants for decades.
And I mean decades.
But she wasn’t a hoarder. Her house was always in perfect order (and I do mean order. She never ever rearranged anything). She didn’t accumulate more stuff, she just kept reusing the stuff she already had. If she noticed something was rusting, she never threw it out. She simply sprayed a new coat of paint over it every time the rust showed through until the metal completely oxidized and it dissolved at a touch. Seriously.
But that wasn’t what made Aunt Norene a special character in my life story.
She also had more love in her heart than your average human. She noticed that there were a few stray cats coming around her yard. So she started to feed them. Then more cats started coming. My dear Aunt Norene never had the heart to send the cats away, or to try and catch them. She just kept buying more cat food. By the time my mom came to live next door to her and the four of us kids stayed with her after school, she was feeding the entire neighborhood’s cats twice a day. She called them her babies, though she only kept one cat inside her home. Her “inside cat” during the final years of her life was named Babydoll.
Aunt Norene had a huge impact on my life (though I wish her thriftiness had rubbed off on me a whole lot more…).
She never gave birth to any children of her own. She worked for State Farm Insurance for decades before she and her husband—my great Uncle Bill–left their lives in Illinois to retire. They traveled quite a bit and settled down in central Florida, where they bought a few properties. They had a great little retirement set-up.
But Uncle Bill didn’t get to enjoy it long enough. Aunt Norene was a widow for the entire time we lived in Florida. I’d only met Uncle Bill once when our family had gone to visit a few years before we moved to Florida. I only remember two things about him: 1-he was very kind to us kids (not all of our older family members liked kids…) and 2-his lips were very dry when he kissed my cheek. Aunt Norene lost her husband and her brother to cancer, so she decided to stop smoking, though she always kept a pack around her house and designated Saturday afternoons as her one day a week to smoke a cigarette. Just one.
Aunt Norene, like many women of her time, smoked cigarettes and never learned how to drive. She kept Uncle Bill’s old baby blue Chevy Caprice in her driveway, though. Every Saturday, we’d pile into Aunt Norene’s car and my mom would drive her own four kids—plus Aunt Norene—to the grocery store. Now that I’ve suffered through many grocery shopping trips of my own with five kids, I have an all-new appreciation for my mom’s survival of such weekly torture (this is why I only go monthly). For my poor mother, these weekly trips were a constant battle to find balance between multiple powerful forces: four rambunctious children, a super tight grocery budget, and making sure we were maintaining Aunt Norene’s pace through the store (we didn’t live in the kind of place where you wanted to spend time waiting alone with a cart full of groceries after you finished shopping).
She loved me.
Aunt Norene bought us birthday presents and Christmas presents every year. She came over for holidays and invited us over for dinner regularly. Dinner at Aunt Norene’s house was always followed by a game of Scrabble. More often than not, Aunt Norene won those Scrabble games.
During some of my stupidity-ridden teenage years I resented her thriftiness and her lack of knowledge when it came to current trends (for example, she always called Nike shoes “nickis” and she never bought them). Fortunately, my stupidity didn’t cause any permanent damage and I was blessed to be loved by this beautiful woman as if I were her granddaughter.
She is always a part of me.
When I left for college, I brought an old flannel shirt and a couple polyester shirts from Aunt Norene’s closet (she gave them to me—I didn’t steal them). I took a piece of her with me. A year later, I left for a week in the middle of the Fall semester of my Sophomore year to attend her funeral. I wasn’t ready for her to be gone. I knew so much about her: her favorite soap operas, her cigarette brand of choice, her best Scrabble strategies, the deep blue color of her eyes, her handwriting. But I didn’t know so many other things. I wish now that I would have taken the time to ask her more questions and to write things down.
Several years later as I struggled with infertility, my heart ached wondering if this is what my Aunt Norene dealt with as well. This is a scrapbook page I made back in 2007.
Inside the flap concealed by Aunt Norene & Uncle Bill’s picture, I journaled these words:
“You married the love of your life and always seemed to have such a strong and happy relationship. I never knew why you didn’t have kids but now as I face my own infertility issues I wonder if you went through something similar. I now know how you must have felt—the aching in your arms and heart. Did people ask? Did you feel awkward at family gatherings? You always seemed so self-assured… Maybe I will, too, over time. You had so much love to give that you shared with me and countless others (including cats).”
I wish I had known more about my Aunt Norene and her life. I am sure she told me things casually that I have long since forgotten. That fact breaks my heart most of all.
Stories Matter. Storyboards help.
My friend, Rhonda Lauritzen, actually helps people write family stories for a living! She is dedicated to helping individuals and organizations gather and record precious stories and memories. I had the pleasure of reading her most recent book, Remember When, a few months ago. It was very inspiring.
If you are looking at taking more of a DIY route, Rhonda has recently created a beautiful Storyboard kit to help anyone who is trying to write down family stories (or any stories, really). They help you to organize thoughts and events to create a coherent story. Her website, Evalogue.Life is full of fantastic tips and information about how to gather and record stories from your own family history.
Blogiversary Giveaway #3:
Today as the third day in our Blogiversary Celebration, Rhonda is going to give one lucky winner a fantastic Writer’s Storyboard Kit!
The kit includes:
-Rhonda’s new How to Storyboard book
–storyboard templates
-Post-it Notes
-life story question booklet
-flash drive
-high-quality pen
-plastic folder
-clipboard
You can enter to win through this link . Update: This giveaway has ended. The winner is Maria Dalmau! Congratulations, Maria!
I hope that recording and sharing your stories and your family’s stories brings you joy!
Who would you choose to write about? Share in the comments below.
If you missed the first two days of the celebration, you’re not too late to join in on the fun!
Blogiversary Celebration Day #1
Blogiversary Celebration Day #2
I didn’t expect to get choked up as I read your article but I did, sitting here at my desk. I also didn’t expect to get inspired to step up my thrifty game, but I feel a nudge to do better. Thank you for making my day better with this post.
Thanks, Rhonda! You’re awesome!
Beautiful post, Alissa! I have missed out on so many wonderful stories because I waited too long to gather information. We think loved ones are going to be around forever, only to realize we missed some golden opportunities. Thanks for sharing your inspiring, heartfelt article. I also love Rhonda’s “How to Storyboard” book and Template. It’s really helpful in getting those stories organized and written!
Thanks, Claudia! It is so hard when we don’t see the gold in those moments until they’ve already passed. I guess if we just keep trying to cherish the moments we have, we may eek by with a little less regret…Thanks for stopping by and sharing your thoughts! You’re awesome!