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Why We Should Cherish and Respect Our Enlightened Elders
With soulful eyes, resilient spirits, and inspiration that come from years of lessons learned, their stories are precious pearls of wisdom.
Our elders are the cornerstones of our community and culture. They have been the forerunners and the onlookers through time. Those who have walked the path of light have great stories to tell. Stories rich in truth, hope, and possibility.
After reading a story entitled A Story On How The Universe Works by Lwazi, I am inspired and reminded to take the time to listen to the stories of our enlightened elders.
In his story, Lwazi meets an Armenian man, 97 years young who has written a book about his life.
…we (my wife and I) told him we were visiting Armenia next year. “And he happens to be not only Armenian but his family barely survived the “Armenian Massacre of 1918.”
How many of us have an opportunity to touch history and to hear it spoken from a true-life account — not fancied up by Hollywood?
Therefore, I think it is important for everyone to write a memoir. Nah, it’s not arrogant or egotistical. Your life story matters. Wisdom translated in words can have an impact on generations living long after your departure.
Even if your family didn’t live through a massacre or genocide, there is still wisdom in a life lived.
I would have loved for my grandparents to have written about their childhood. Where are all those little notes my grandmother wrote and my mother found when she was a little girl. Notes my mother said, “read like poems and song lyrics.”
How wonderful it would have been to cite passages aloud in a room of poetry lovers!
Why didn’t my grandfather dictate, write down, record — something — the story of how his mother, his siblings, and he survived the flood of 1927 and lived in a “Tent-City until the waters receded?”
How he fought a group of boys and earned the name “Big Man.” That’s history too. Yes, that’s his-story.
