Vintage Family Black and White Photos from Agewise
Recently, I was contacted by AgeWise King County to contribute my thoughts to their article about ‘Leaving One’s Legacy’ based on my work interviewing elders. There are so many common themes that come up in Loving Legacy videos around a desire for people’s future generations to know those who came before them, to want people to know you in ways that you may not have previously shared, and to take the time to do this while one can.
“Another strategy for communicating your personal story is video. Len Davis, an award-winning commercial and personal videographer, films and facilitates autobiographical interviews with elders. People who seek his expertise fall into two categories—30- to 60-year-olds who notice their aging parents changing and losing some of their faculties and recognize that the window of opportunity for them to access the stories and information about their parents’ lives is closing; and 60- to 90-year-olds who want to capture their lived experience and share it with grandkids or future generations. They want to be able to reflect on their own lives as well as those of generations past.
“People are motivated to preserve their cultural history and their sense of identity,” says Davis. “They want to share where their family is from, the food they ate, the heirlooms that were passed down to them. Some people want to talk about their professional and civic accomplishments, or their lives in the military.” The video experience allows them to explore who they are and what they want others to know. Davis comments, “The videos have sometimes changed the relationship between adults and their elderly parents. This particular media and the recorded stories helped the ad
ult children understand their parents differently, with more knowledge and compassion.”
Clips from the videos have been used in memorial services and other life celebrations. People also can watch the video and enter a different relationship with their parents or with themselves. Davis says, “People don’t want to live with regret about what they didn’t share.”
AgeWise is a great local resource for elders who are active, connected and making a difference in King County.
I enjoyed the opportunity to spend this morning with the folks at Silver Kite, a Seattle intergenerational community arts program. They’re doing great things using art as a vehicle for connecting across generations and cultures, promoting social change and bringing people together. They also offer professional development workshops for older adult service providers and educators in arts leadership, and intergenerational programming. A mutual friend had introduced me to the founder/director Jen Kulik who shared with me her personal story around the birth of Silver Kite and what’s at the heart of their work. One of the coolest projects they have is something called the Spark Box, which is a subscription based art box with materials and activities that prompt the creation of artworks with personal storytelling exercises. I think it’s a beautiful idea and was happy to see examples of what the boxes contain. It’s amazing to me that Silver Kite offers classes in graphic memoir, visual and digital storytelling, dementia friendly poetry and storytelling and so much more. Intergenerational theater programs are also one core piece of their work, both leading exercises and performances with youth and elders acting together. And they bring the exercises and games to the community, to libraries, assisted living communities and nursing homes around the Seattle area. Very impressive work. To learn more, visit their class listings page at http://www.silverkite.us/arts-with-older-adults
Studies have shown participation in the arts is beneficial to older adults’ self-esteem, socialization, communication skills, and emotional health.
‘The Big Picture‘ is a beautiful short video animation about two very different adult brothers, dealing with the ageing and death of their mother. It’s a unique form of animation that is apparently created with life sized characters. In the story 2 brothers argue over whether to put their mom in a nursing home, and deal with each other through her ageing, and over her eventual death. I really enjoyed this piece- the aesthetic, the content and dialogue and overall story. It’s a very real portrait of a family struggling to deal with their ageing parent, sibling rivalry, conflict, who does the caregiving, makes the decisions, cleans mom’s body and much more. I love the quality and breadth of the videos Vimeo shares. This short has apparently won numerous awards throughout the US and Europe.
Wow. ‘Grandpa and Me and a Helicopter to Heaven‘ is a gorgeous short documentary film about the relationship between a young boy and his dying grandfather with whom he’s close. I believe the film is in Swedish and filmed in Sweden. The film jumps back and forth between the birth and early years of the boy’s life with his grandfather, and the time they spend together while the old man is dying. There are no other people in the film until the last scene. One amazing scene involves the grandchildren touching his dead body. This short moved me to tears. A really beautiful family portrait.
‘Directed by Tweetie’ is a very sweet Scottish documentary film made by a 23 year old with his ageing grandparents. It’s a beautiful family portrait in which very little actually happens. It’s all just him interacting with his grandparents, putting the microphone on them, talking about why he’s filming them, visiting parts of their home and garden, etc. The grandparents very innocently cooperate, answering his casual questions, watching him assembling and adjusting his equipment, and along the way engaging about how they see themselves, including reacting to watching the footage that’s been shot. It’s simple and sweet.
For me, watching this beautiful video of an elderly man singing to his dying wife in her hospital bed brings back memories of sitting by my own grandmother’s nursing home bedside. I’d hold her hand and stay talking to her. By that time, she was almost fully incapable of speaking but would every once in a while blurt something out that would so clearly confirm that she was hearing everything I was saying. Sometimes it was just the confirmation of her eyes, making clear she was hearing me. Other times she’d speak a few words that would surprise me. Sometimes I would kind of climb onto the bed by her side. Not smooshing her but half on half off, my torso by her side and head on her shoulder but off the bed from the waist down. I had a similar experience when my other grandmother’s sister was on the verge of dying. We’d flown in from Seattle to see her one last time, and she was laying in the hospital bed barely conscious. We’d been told she wasn’t speaking and had little time to live. Out of nowhere in response to our presence and speaking to her, she blurted out a series of words clarifying that she was right there with us. It was powerful and beautiful. She died shortly after.
This is a sweet video passed along by a friend. The video’s title ‘How to Talk to Old People’ is what first caught my eye but then I stuck around to learn some insights. It’s a goofy interview with a 100 year old grandmother in Bellevue WA. Her grandson is interviewing her about the kinds of questions she loves to be asked. She also talks about the most common questions she’s asked by people who marvel at her age. It’s beautiful to see her so vibrant and clear at a full 100 years of age.
This is a beautiful animation of a final conversation between an elderly father and his adult daughter. I believe it was produced by the health and wellness website CureJoy. It was meaningful to me in considering these challenging conversations we have with our ageing or dying parents. How to say goodbye in the last few times we see each other. How to have difficult conversations about painful subjects. How to get past previous conflicts and patterns in the way we communicate with each other. I liked the simplicity of the animation in tackling these situations. It was upbeat and feel good, but spoke to these situations in general. In the work of Loving Legacy Video, it’s amazing to know that the videos we produce intentionally ask deeper questions about the things people want others to know about their life, about regrets they’ve had or situations they wish they’d handled differently or made other choices about the path they took. Or about the type of parent or grandparent they tried to be.
