Fall 2003
Introduction

The Power of Stories

By Anne M. Wyatt-Brown, guest editor

In his seminal 1963 article, Robert Butler encouraged therapists to allow elders to tell the stories of their lives and to listen respectfully to their tales. Engaging in life review at the end of life, he argued, was good for the patient, mostly in terms of morale and sense of identity. Yet all of life is punctuated by stories, some more beneficial than others. At every stage narratives can prepare people for the future or steel them to bear the troubles and routines of the present. Moreover, these stories can disclose other folkways or recall past events that otherwise would be denied or forgotten. Ordinarily these tales offer a positive message. They provide a perspective on the future rather than a dread of things to come. Still others reveal the possibilities of regeneration. From them we learn about individuals who have not only survived trauma but learned to flourish far from the land of their birth. With varying degrees of accuracy at every stage of life, narratives can prepare us for the imagined future.¹ These reflections were brought home to me a few weeks before Christmas 2002. Our grandson, Anders, went into the hospital with R.S.V., a respiratory disease about which I knew nothing. Realizing that daycare was hardly the place for him to recuperate, I rushed out to St. Paul to help him through the crisis. The last time I'd had full-time responsibility for a baby was more than thirty years past. Not surprisingly, I gained a new respect for the potential of television, a lesson mothers learn very quickly. Being eight months old, Anders was too young for books unless they were chewable. So in the afternoons to break the monotony of life outside of daycare, we watched the screen together. He liked such programs on Public Television as Arthur, Sagwa, the Chinese Siamese Cat, and Clifford. Upon reflection I realized that he was being exposed to new cultures and to a slightly different age group. The cats, dogs, and monkeys in Sagwa were older and more independent than our infant, and Amy Tan's line drawings represented a Chinese culture of days gone by. The program reminded me of stories set in China that I had read as a child and of how fascinating the unfamiliar settings had been. Arthur and Clifford were American tales, but the children were once again older than our grandchild. All of these programs held out hope that his next stage of development was worth anticipating, for a world existed far beyond his temporary limitations.

Children's books, however, are not the only ones to anticipate the next stage of life. For example, Connie Goldman's (2002) Gifts of Caregiving presents a bearable picture of the future to midlife adults whose relatives are beginning to fail. Fortunately, Goldman's interviews with people taking care of demented or frail relatives demonstrate the positive rewards of this task as well as the difficulties. One may have to sacrifice time, effort, and money, but most of the people Goldman talked to mentioned the benefits of their new roles. Such stories are useful to sustain morale when one is faced with similar challenges. The memory of these narratives could help us persist long enough to find the potential rewards for ourselves.

Other stories teach us about past events that might be denied or forgotten. Some of these recollections, especially narratives of the Holocaust, are especially difficult for those who endured wartime atrocities. For example, spring 2002 I interviewed an 85-year-old Holocaust survivor named Gertrude Kupfer (2002) in Richmond, Virginia. Over a period of hours she described her experience as a slave laborer. By talking to me she hoped to educate an expanding number of people about what really happened to Jews under the Germans. Like most survivors, she is deeply troubled by Holocaust deniers, who claim that few Jews died or were mistreated in the Hitler regime. Moreover, she fears that children will not learn the truth about the past unless she and others like her speak up.

One of the episodes that pained Gertrude the most was recalling the cruelty of members of the Hitler Jungend, 14- and 15-year-old boys whom Hitler had declared to be Germany's hope for the future. Like other slaves, she was forced to scrub floors in their presence. Some of these boys, she reported, "walked on our hands in leather boots, with round horseshoes on the heels." Today her arthritic hands still hurt, and she has nightmares of being walked on. As she told me about this episode, her recollected pain and humiliation were palpable. Yet talking to Gertrude was not depressing, far from it. Like many survivors who have lived into old age, she is a most impressive person. Except when asked, she does not dwell on the past but lives firmly in the present. As a result, spending time with her is a tonic.

Even a cursory look at Gertrude's postwar life suggests strength of character and a positive nature. She married a fellow survivor after the war and emigrated first to Canada and then to Richmond. She and her physician husband made a new life for themselves and reared two children. As long as her husband was alive, they adhered to a pact of silence about the war. Like many survivors they feared upsetting their youngsters with tales of woe. After her husband died in 1964, her son begged her to speak of the atrocities she had endured. For the first time she began to talk about the past. Not surprisingly, her son has become a therapist who specializes in helping traumatized clients. His skills in assisting frightened people were especially helpful soon after September 11, 2001, when school officials asked him to talk to traumatized children. Thanks to his encouragement, Gertrude has talked to many groups, including school children. She is determined that the next generation will learn the truth of the Holocaust. As a result of her many community activities, on May 23, 2000, Gertrude Kupfer was awarded the Sofie Stahl Memorial Award for 1999­2000 by the Jewish Women International in Richmond, Virginia. She was recognized for her many volunteer activities and for creating the Henry and Gertrude Kupfer Holocaust Education Fund within the Endowment Fund of the Federation.

Although people assume that reading memoirs of the Holocaust and talking to survivors must be painful, my experience has been anything but depressing. Those willing to write and talk about their wartime lives exhibit courage and a remarkably positive nature. Perhaps others whose lives were permanently damaged by their enslavement neither write memoirs nor give interviews. Like unhappy caregivers who resent their enforced service, troubled survivors complain and describe unpleasant symptoms when asked a question. Yet the positive narratives are especially important, even though we acknowledge the suffering of those who have been less resilient. We need hope and the examples of bravery to overcome the challenges most of us have experienced or will endure. For example, Gerda Lerner (2002), an American historian and refugee from Nazi Austria, describes how in 1938 she and two socialist women imprisoned in an Austrian jail helped each other face an uncertain future by telling stories. They divided the endless prison days into activities. Narratives of their earlier and happier times created a sustaining bond of courage and solidarity. Without stories our lives would be impoverished, and we might lose hope for the future. Therefore, the purpose of this issue of Generations is to discuss the role of narratives in our lives. We wish to encourage clinicians and caregivers to elicit stories from their clients, some of which may have unexpected potential for healing past wounds and for contributing to better understanding and care in the present.

The essays in this volume address narrative from several perspectives. At the beginning of each of the sections--The Importance of Stories, Autobiographical Narratives, and The Seduction of Stories--I've provided brief introductions that underline some of the important points of each. All of these essays attest to the power of storytelling, and each teaches us to be better readers and listeners to the narratives we find in our lives and work. As the remarkable Fred Rogers, host of television's Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood, wrote in a manual on child-rearing in early 2003 shortly before his death, stories and night-lights can comfort frightened children. To this insight the New Yorker reviewer (Acocella, 2003) adds, "parents, too, need to be told that there is still light somewhere, and that the daylight will come again." As these essays suggest, so do we all.

References

Acocella, J. 2003. "Mother's Helpers: A Century of Child-Rearing Manuals." The New Yorker, May 5 pp. 94­98.

Butler, R. N. 1963. "The Life Review: An Interpretation of Reminiscence in the Aged." Psychiatry: Journal for the Study of Interpersonal Processes 26: 65­76.

Goldman, C. 2002. The Gifts of Caregiving: Stories of Hardship, Hope, and Healing. Minneapolis, Minn.: Fairview Press.

Kupfer, G. 2002. Interviews, Richmond, Va.. April 25 and 29.

Labov, W. 1972. Sociolinguistic Patterns. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

Lerner, G. 2002. Fireweed: A Political Autobiography. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

Note

1. Margaret Morganroth Gullette pointed out that not all narratives are trustworthy. Personal communication, May 7, 2003.

From Generations Fall 2003 issue, 27(3): 6-8. © 2003 American Society on Aging