Tag: legacy

How to Share a Ghost Story

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“Share your knowledge. It’s a way to achieve immortality.” – Dalai Lama

Book collector Harry Elkins Widener was 27-years-old when he stood on the deck of the Titanic and urged his mom to get on a lifeboat. He said he needed to go back to get a rare and precious book. He was never seen again and no book was ever found.

Here’s what I love about how we share. That story has persisted in the 113 years since the Titanic went down because it was shared. It lives on because Harry Elkins Widener’s mom built a library for him at Harvard complete with Memorial Rooms that house his desk and shared his rare book collection. I know of the story because the talented novelist Alyson Richman heard the story, did an immense amount of research, and then shared it in the form of her delightful latest historical novel, The Missing Pages. We humans really are amazing at our ability to share knowledge, stories, and legacy in so many ways.

On the latest episode of the How to Share podcast, Vicki Atkinson and I had the great fortune to talk with Alyson Richman about her incredible book, The Missing Pages. She tells us how she heard the story of Harry Elkins Widener from her daughter and was inspired to write this book.

Alyson has the amazing ability to inhabit the time periods she writes about – and they are different for each of her 12 bestselling novels. She tells us about her research process and how her insatiable curiosity helps to drive her storytelling and writing.

We talk about the unexpected gifts in writing. In this case, the story her daughter, Charlotte, brought home from a Harvard Campus tour. Alyson reminds us that you have to be open to receive unexpected gifts and the goodness that flows from them.

Alyson has done that beautifully in this book, embodying both the mother and son’s viewpoint as well as the rich historical context in her gripping story. It’s a ghost story, mystery, bibliophile adventure, and love-story all wrapped up in one delicious book.

This is a wonderful conversation with an incredible author about a fantastic book. We know you’ll love it.

Takeaways

  • Alyson Richman’s novel ‘The Missing Pages’ is inspired by a true story.
  • The book intertwines the past and present through a ghost narrative.
  • Richman emphasizes the importance of being open to unexpected gifts.
  • Her research process involves extensive historical exploration.
  • The themes of grief and memory are central to her storytelling.
  • Richman’s characters are deeply developed and emotionally engaging.
  • Historical facts serve as building blocks for her narratives.
  • Richman is currently working on a new novel about Edith Wharton.

Here’s Alyson talking about her inspiration:

Here are some ways you can watch this great episode:

Links for this episode:

How to Share a Ghost Story with Alyson Richman transcript

The Missing Pages on Barnes & Noble and Amazon

Alyson Richman’s website

From the Hosts:

Vicki’s book about resilience and love: Surviving Sue; Blog: https://victoriaponders.com/

My book about my beloved father: Finding My Father’s Faith

Stories Matter

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“I began to realize how important it was to be an enthusiast in life. Embrace it with both arms, hug it, love it and above all become passionate about it. Lukewarm is no good. Hot is no good either. White hot and passionate is the only thing to be.” – Roald Dahl

This past Tuesday, eight-year-old, Miss O was working on a school project and announced “Volcanoes are boring.”

I harumphed thinking about all the beautiful, scenic, and climbable volcanoes in our vicinity. “I love volcanoes,” I said.

She shot back, “I bet you could make volcanoes interesting.”

So at bedtime that night, I told her and four-year-old Mr. D. about when I was 11-years-old and living in Spokane, Washington. We were driving home from church on a Sunday afternoon in May, 1980. We stopped to talk with a neighbor who told us that Mt. St. Helens had erupted. Mt. St. Helens was on the opposite side of the state from us. The eruption blew the top 1,300 feet and the north side of the mountain off. We nodded with interest and went about our day as usual thinking it had no bearing on us.

As we drove home from a playdate four hours later, the sunny May sky turned gun metal gray and ash started falling. We carefully drove home with our windshield wipers pushing the dusty pile off our windshield.

In Spokane where it snows usually from October through March, school is never canceled because of weather. But after Mt. St. Helens blew, they told us to stay indoors, and school was canceled for a week. Everyone tried to figure out what to do with Mt. St. Helens ash. We collected it to polish silverware. Others used it to make ceramics. My friend, Jiffy and I used it to build sand (ash?) castles. When we drove across the state on vacation that summer, we stopped on several occasions to watch impressive ash dust devils form in fields across the state.

Then I told my kids about how, in the year 2000, twenty years after it erupted it, I climbed Mt. St. Helens for the first time. It’s hard to get permits to climb in the summer. The park service limits traffic to help the flora to grow back. [And here I may have embellished a little side story imagining how excited the scientists were when they discovered the first flow to grow back after the eruption. “Look, look, the first tiny flower has come back to St. Helens!!”]

In order to bypass the permit lottery process my friend, Jill, and I climbed in the late spring when the traffic is low so it’s easy to get a permit. We climbed up 6,000 feet on a sunny April Saturday to look over the rim. Even though it wasn’t very high (any more) was a long one-day climb.

The view over the rim of Mt. St. Helens to the little pot-belly lava dome in the top center.

And the rim? Well, it was fascinating to look over the edge into gaping hole below with a little pot-belly lava dome in the middle. And then to have a sense of surreal shock that nothing was below us.

The rim of Mt. St. Helens 20 years after the top and half the mountain blew off.

For as exhilarating as it is to stand on a mountain top, it’s a little dizzying to stand on only half of one.

This bedtime story session was on Tuesday night. By Wednesday afternoon, Miss O was telling me facts about volcanoes. “Mom, did you know there are three types of volcanoes?”

I didn’t even try to hide my glee.

This theme shows up for me again and again. When we share our stories – it matters. Our authentic voice telling our experiences are more than just a bedtime story. It’s the passing on of energy, passion, and warmth.

(photos in this post are mine – the featured photo is my favorite volcano, Mt. Rainier)

And speaking of authentic stories, Vicki and I talk with writer and blogger, Cheryl Oreglia on our podcast today about her experience at the San Francisco Writer’s conference. She sells us the idea that not only are we the only one to tell our stories – we might be obligated to. It’s such a great episode. Please tune in by searching for (and subscribing to) Sharing the Heart of the Matter on Apple, Amazon, Spotify or Pocketcasts

Or click through to the show notes Episode 61: The Writers Conference with Cheryl Oreglia for the link to listen on Anchor on whatever device you are using.

A Legacy of Love

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“Legacy is planting trees under whose shade you will never sit.” – Richard Leon

I went to a dinner last night to honor a foundation my dad started 25 years ago. The foundation takes any money bequeathed in wills to the church he was pastor of and gives out grants to deserving organizations. The one they featured last night was a non-profit that helps with refugee settlement and combats the trafficking of children.

Sitting there listening to the work of my dad’s legacy, I pondered what the echo of our lives is when we die. Certainly the love and memories we have made lingered in the hearts and minds of the people we love but beyond that, is there anything else? I’ve helped build a few Habitat for Humanity homes – does that make any difference? What about words? Books? Blog posts?

Thinking about my dad’s quote above, we can plant trees under whose shade we will never sit. Presumably that means that there will be more oxygen to breathe, comfort on the hot days, possibly even food to eat for the people we leave behind and for our communities. We can plant and contribute to organizations and ideas that help ameliorate the pain in the world. And my dad did. But where does that mean my work as his daughter begins?

Someone in the room last night asked for a member of our family to speak. As the youngest child, I assumed it would be my brother or my mom since they’ve always done the talking but it turned out they nominated me. Without any preparation of what to say, I started with the depth, faith and the love that my dad started in me and how that fire still burns. In fact, it feels as if I have come to embody my dad even more in his absence than I ever did when he was alive, in search of God, kindness and love. We do pass a torch to the next generation and I think it’s in the form of the fires we light within other people. It’s not as quantifiable as money left to a foundation but it’s just as powerful.

The Core Message

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“If what you believe does not impact how you behave then what you believe is not important.” – Shaykh Yassir Fazaga

I was challenged by a question in Frederick Buechner’s meditation book Listening to Your Life: If you had to write a last message for the few people that you care about the most in 25 words or less, what would it be? I pondered this, tried it, revised it, slept on it, wrote it again. It’s hard. I never got it down to 25 words or less but here’s my favorite version in 45 words:

You are beautiful and precious, worthy of love. I am rooting for you in every endeavor, holding you in every tear, and standing tall beside you when you speak your truth. Cultivate silence. Stay rooted in learning and growth, leaning towards life. Never stop trying.

And you know what I liked best about this exercise? It’s like writing out my value statement about how I want to live. It seems like if I can distill that, it’ll tether me to my ground in the moments when I feel I’ve lost my way.