By Damien Healy
Most of us mean to write our stories down one day. Most of us never quite do. It isn’t a lack of stories. It’s that “tell me about your life” is too big a question, and big questions get small answers.
Small, specific questions get stories. Here are ten to try, on yourself or on someone you love. Lighter ones first; start at the top.
- What was for dinner at home when you were ten, and who sat where?
- Which room from your early years can you still walk through in your head? What’s in it?
- What were you told off for?
- What did your mother, father or whoever raised you say so often you can still hear it?
- What was your first pay packet, and what did you spend it on?
- Who has been the great companion of your life? A partner, a friend, a sister? How did you meet?
- Where did you live that you didn’t want to leave?
- What were you good at that might surprise people?
- What was the hardest year, and what got you through it?
- When have you been happiest, even if nobody else noticed?
If you’re the one asking, listen more than you talk. Don’t correct their dates. Let the pauses sit. The best part often comes after the silence. Then follow the thread: “What happened next?” “Who else was there?” “What was that like?”
Getting it down. Sit together with a smartphone on the table and use its voice recorder app. Or write one story, not a whole life: one question, one page. Or ask a grandchild, niece or young friend to do the asking; they get the stories, you get the company. Or, if the asking is the part that never happens, let someone else do it: that’s why I built LifeLoom. An AI biographer phones at a time you choose, listens, and asks gentle follow-ups, and the conversations become an heirloom book and a private digital memoir for your family. Small and often beats one big session, whichever way you choose.
It’s fine to skip. Some memories are hard. Leave those for another day, or for never, and if a story gets heavy, finish on something lighter.
Keep it safe. Label a recording with the name, the date and who’s speaking, and copy it somewhere safe. A recording holds more than the words: the laugh, the pause, the way a name is said.
Damien Healy lives on the Northern Beaches and founded LifeLoom.
