Our Stories Are Important

I am very excited to post the first article in Literary Corner in 2022. The honor goes to Arthur Reynolds, who is not just a great writer, but he happens to be my son-in-law. Arthur has captured the true spirit of Literary Corner, and in a broad sense of literature in general. I hope you all enjoy this!

Our Stories Are Important

By Arthur Reynolds

When I was twenty, I came home from school one weekend to see my family and had the idea to ask my grandfather to tell me a story that he’d never told me before. He thought for a moment and then recounted the following:

When I was a boy, my parents brought me to the zoo. As we approached the gate to enter I heard a voice say, “Hello!” I looked around to see who had said it, but there was only my family and a crow. It was perched on top of the gate which arched over the entryway and it said “hello” to all of the guests that entered. 

While this story wasn’t an epic tale spanning hundreds of pages, it brought me great joy to hear it. I could feel the magic in it. A whimsical encounter for a child that stayed with him into his nineties. He passed away a year later and I was glad to have had that moment where he shared a memory from his childhood that was special to him. Thinking about that story now brings tears to my eyes. Tears that miss him, but also tears that are overwhelmed with the joy of the memories I shared with him. I can still hear the way that he said “Hello!” like the crow, and it makes me laugh. 

This is the power of stories. They carry depth and subjectivity. For me, the story of the friendly crow at the zoo carries catharsis for the loss of my grandfather but for you, it might just be a sweet little anecdote. They can mean different things to different people at different times. The words of the story barely change, but we shift throughout our lives as we create our own stories. Our experiences bring new context and appreciation for the tales we’ve heard a thousand times.

Our stories are important. They carry our history, our dreams, and the essence of the human experience. Our stories define us. They shape our futures and teach our children. So go out and tell your children or grandchildren a story you’ve never told them. They want to hear it, they just don’t know it yet.