Lost Life Stories

Documenting the missing stories

Photo by S O C I A L . C U T on Unsplash

One of the hardest things to come to terms with in life is that we are ultimately alone. People come in and out of our lives at points in our journey’s, and yes, a lucky few get to spend many years sharing their experiences with another traveller. Still, the truth is, no one person shares everything that we do, and our journey along the road from birth to death is fundamentally ours.

There are large parts of my life that only I have experienced; I’ve not been one of those lucky people who found someone to share their years of journey with. There are memories in my mind that nobody else knows about. Not because I am purposely keeping those memories from others, but because they will remain hidden for eternity unless I talk about them. They are missing stories.

No other person knows everything we experience. Each of us will leave this world, taking missing stories with us.

I am fascinated with old people and the stories they can tell us about their lives. I am also fascinated by the fact that many of those stories are never passed on or documented and therefore lost when someone leaves this world.

Looking back across history, the impressive stories we know of are because someone became famous in one way or another. But what about the stories of ordinary people? Who can say their stories are any less spectacular? How do we hear those unheard stories?

If it was possible, I would talk to every person in the world to document their missing stories, but that is the kind of thing that only happens in movies. I can still dream though.

There are moments of my life that I want to pass on to my daughters, so they never have to wonder about my experiences and not have the answers. So I can give them a legacy to hold on to. To document the missing stories.

I can write my story, I will write my story, and I enjoy writing.

But what about all of those stories that belong to people that are not passed on? The lost life stories.

This is my passion project, the missing stories. I don’t know where I am going with it yet, except it will be one story at a time.