The First Time They Ask About Someone They Never Met

The First Time They Ask About Someone They Never Met By Gary Payne, MBA Founder of FuneralCostOntario.ca One of the things that has surprised me over the years is that every family eventually reaches the point where someone around the table has never met a person everyone else still talks about. It is a gradual thing, and does not happen all at once. A grandchild gets a little older, a new son-in-law joins the family, a niece, nephew or close family friend arrives years after someone has passed away. Then, somewhere in the middle of an ordinary conversation, they ask a simple question. "What was Grandpa like?" It is such an ordinary question that most people answer it without thinking very much about it. What I have found most interesting, though, is that families almost never answer with a list of facts. Nobody says he worked here, retired then, and liked to fish. Instead, as one would expect, someone usually smiles before they even begin. "Let me tell you what he used to do..." Almost without realizing it, the family starts introducing someone who is no longer in the room. I think that is one of the nicest things families do for one another. They do not describe a person nearly as much as they let them reappear for a few minutes. Before long, everyone is adding something. Someone remembers the way he laughed before he reached the punchline. Somebody else insists he always exaggerated that part of the story. The one telling the story is often convinced everyone else has forgotten the best ending. The youngest person at the table simply listens, trying to picture someone they never had the chance to meet. It is interesting how quickly those conversations stop feeling like explanations and start feeling like introductions. I have noticed this in my own family since my father passed away a couple of years ago. We still tell the stories he loved to tell, along with plenty of stories about him. They have become part of our family conversations again, and I honestly could not tell you when that happened. Somewhere along the way, they simply found their place again. What has surprised me recently is realizing that, before long, there will be younger members of our family hearing some of those stories for the first time. They will probably end up knowing my father in a very different way than I did, but they will know something of his humour, his personality and the way he looked at the world because the rest of us keep talking about him as though he has just stepped out of the room for a few minutes. Families probably do this more often than they realize. Certain stories are told often enough that they begin belonging to everyone. The people who were there still remember exactly where they were sitting. The people who came later know the story just as well, even though they were never part of the original moment. Somewhere along the way, the story stops being about remembering the past and simply becomes part of the family's everyday conversation. I suppose that is how people through these stories just become part of the next generation's memories without ever having met them. Not through formal family histories or carefully written biographies, but through ordinary stories told around kitchen tables, during long drives, over birthday dinners, and whenever somebody says, "That reminds me of Grandpa." The longer I have watched families grow and change, the more I have come to appreciate those moments. One generation tells the story because they lived it. The next generation listens because they are curious. Somewhere in between, without anybody planning it, a person they never had the chance to meet slowly becomes someone they feel as though they have always known.