Every Family Has A Story: How we inherit love and loss

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Julia Samuel is so wise and compassionate. I love every word she writes and long for every reader—every person—to experience her unique and generous way of being in the world.” —Cathy Rentzenbrink

Every family has a story that it tells itself, that it passes on to the children and grandchildren. The story grows over the years, mutates, some parts are sharpened, others dropped, and there is often debate about what really happened. But even with these different sides of the same story, there is still agreement that this is the family story. And in the absence of other narratives, it becomes the flagpole that the family hangs its identity from.” (A.M. Homes) Julia: And one of the truth is that not everything happens for a reason. Life is effing random. I mean, it is random. It happens for no reason. But we can ever make sense of. That we can ever give ourselves a proper reason. It just does happen out of the blue randomly. And sometimes it’s one person lots of terrible things. Sometimes only good things happen to some good people, for which I can’t really fully understand either, to be absolutely honest all of it. You know, you look at these family sometimes I look at other families and I kind of think, oh, how come that is literally nothing as far as I know that is breaking your day and I love them and also.. Like HOW Come? This book is wonderful, wise and empathetic, so useful but also so beautifully written. . . . What I found really interesting is the sense of reciprocity, how Julia is engaged in the process of working with clients, changed by them and their stories, as we are by reading about them. Every family should have one, to consult in times of trouble.” —Gavanndra HodgePhotographs of Kim Hawley and her father Jim Scherman. Hawley is the founder of Strength Through Story, an organization that helps birthing parents manage perinatal challenges through writing. Despite encouraging others to share their stories, Hawley hadn't done the same excavating within her family until interviewing her father for Life Kit. Kate: And that’s such a deeply American story. Just like an open field with an individual and all of his bootstraps. Like theres, there’s so many stories that we tell, especially in American culture, that celebrate that kind of hearty loneliness. Kate: Yeah. Your book has these incredible case studies of families learning to negotiate that dynamic. Can you give me an example of if someone who’s acute pain like required them to embed themselves and maybe they had to engage in a story that was their parents or grandparents?

Our children are an integral component of our stories as we are of theirs and, therefore, each child acts as the knighted messengers to carry their forebears’ stories into the future. To deprive our children of the narrative cells regarding the formation of the ozone layer that rims the atmosphere of our ancestors’ saga and parental determination of selfhood is to deny them of the sacred right to claim the sanctity of their heritage. Accordingly, all wrinkled brow natives are chargeable with the sacrosanct obligation of telling their kith and kin the memorable story of the scenic days they spent as children of nature splashing about in their naked innocence in the brook of infinite time and space. We must scrupulous document our family’s history as well as scrawl out our personal story.” (Kilroy J. Oldster)Why do some families thrive in adversity while others fragment? How can families weather difficult transitions together? Why do our families so often exasperate us? And how can even small changes greatly improve our relationships? Julia: They could then they wrote in this wonderful letter, the three of them, because I said to them, you know, their love for the person never dies. They would like I can’t have a relationship with them I only have one photograph. And but every time they talked together and they wrote this such a beautiful letter to him, because, of course, he was still very much in them and part of them, and they could see themselves in him. They had his eyes or his sense of humor, and so they healed by telling painful truths, which is really what you talk about, is that by facing and not hiding from painful truths, we can’t fix the reality of what happened. But we can learn to connect and even love and allow ourselves. Why do some families thrive in adversity while others fragment? How can families weather difficult transitions together? Why do our families drive us mad? And how can even small changes greatly improve our relationships? Fascinating... Julia Samuel's compassionate work never fails to inform, comfort and make me think' Pandora Sykes

Does thinking about honesty and truth as a light in our own lives, change how we understand that Jesus is the light of the world ( John 8:12)? How does your knowing of Christ shed light in your world? Kate: That’s such a that’s such a beautiful word for the person who feels like they are the bomb that goes off. They are the one who is bringing the trauma in the front door. And and nothing can solve it.Julia: Yeah. So it’s the same thing, but just keep going. Just keep going. Don’t ask for help. Don’t make a fuss. Don’t make me feel bad because your I can’t help you. Just glide past me so that I’m not, you know, demanded of or made to feel uncomfortable. But at the same time, you’re really lonely and chilly out there in that horse. When something bad happens I will not let go of that bad thing until I find the blessing within it.’ Yes, it is up to us to pass on family stories—especially ones about God intervening in our lives and homes. And doing this does not need to be complicated. We can share family stories with our children and grandchildren while washing dishes together, taking a relaxing walk, or going on a drive.” (Mary May Larmoyeux)