Posted by lovinglegacyvideo on September, 22, 2018
The idea of legacy can manifest in so many ways, and the tools available to us are unique and powerful.
“I don’t want to wait until somebody dies to tell them what I value or what I remember. I want to do it now!”
“I can decide how much of this I want to share with my children and who gets to see this, which I love.”
“And as I sat here speaking, it occurred to me that parts of this video could play at my memorial ceremony, as if I were addressing my community directly.”
These were some of the sentiments shared by Rebecca Crichton, the Executive Director of the NW Center for Creative Aging during her Loving Legacy Video interview. I loved how she wove together her own life story, her culture and family traditions, together with the work she does with elders, talking frequently about death and dying, memory, family, and so much more. A great testament to the power of this work.
Loving Legacy Video was proud to be an official sponsor of the Senior Matters 2018 organized by Aging Options. The annual conference brings together a host of organizations and businesses supporting seniors, and welcomed keynote speakers Mike Holmgren, the former Superbowl champion coach of the Greenbay Packers, and then Seattle Seahawks on Friday, and then on Saturday multimedia personality Kerri Kasem. The conference was a great opportunity to network with a host of others serving Puget Sound area seniors in all areas of life. Here’s a short video of Keith of Loving Legacy Video addressing the lunchtime audience to share the power in the work we do.
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.
Friends and family gathered at Shoreline Community College to honor the legacy of Plant Amnesty founder Cass Turnbull at her memorial service.
Cass Turnbull was a passionate protector of green space and advocate for teaching proper pruning in Seattle and King County.
I had the privilege to work with Cass over the past 5 years on producing a series of pruning videos that now have over 1.2 million views on YouTube. Cass was a warrior for the protection of green spaces in Seattle and King County. The overflow crowd at her memorial was a testament to the power of her work and voice. I always appreciated her humor, vision for our city, and ability to bring people together.
‘You’re upset, you’re worn out, go inside, go lie down. Maybe you’ve got indigestion!”
I was recently hired to film a very special 50th wedding anniversary celebration in Edmonds. Together with the photos and videos that the husband had edited to project for the crowd during the reception, was this great clip from Fiddler On The Roof in which the husband grills the wife about whether or not she loves him. The crowd loved it and it was a gentle ode to the challenges of marriage, and how they’d managed to stay strong together after all these years. The family sat together, parents and grandparents with the grandchildren at the head table laughing. The family was also of European descent and there were a number of people in the crowd with accents who’d immigrated to Seattle. It seemed to me like a clip that would be great to share at any similar wedding anniversary party or celebration.
The 2 videos below are different kinds of legacy or end of life videos. In these beautiful and sad videos, 2 adult children explore their parent’s aging process. More specifically they share their parent’s increasing dementia and memory loss.
In the video above, an old father can’t remember his family members, his life from day to day or other recent events but when his son takes him driving and plays the songs he sang throughout his career as a musician, the words are all there and he comes alive joyfully singing and returning to his old self. The son has begun using the videos he records to raise money to record an album with his dad singing and all proceeds going toward supporting The Alzheimers Society. So far he’s raised $163,000.
From his website:
I’m fundraising for the Alzheimer’s Society because of the advice they’ve given us in the last few years. Without them we would have had very little idea or support about how to deal with even the basics of Dad’s condition.
The more Alzheimer’s kicked in, the more Dad became violent – both physically and verbally – it was incredibly difficult to manage. And terrifying at times.
Alzheimer’s Society provide a telephone helpline to sufferers and their families. I cannot begin to describe how a stranger’s voice at the end of the phoneline helped when things got really bad.
Dad was a singer throughout his life – he was a Butlin’s Redcoat and then travelled around singing in clubs around the country. He worked in a factory when he got married and did the occasional bit of singing on side. His nickname is The Songaminute Man – simply because of how many songs he knows.
In the last few years his memory has deteriorated a lot – often not recognising me as his son. Its a horrible illness.However, now when we’ve got him singing again he’s back in the room. It’s these moments that we treasure.
The plan is to share as much of Dad’s singing as we can and hopefully it will help raise money to fund the work of the Alzheimer’s Society – more specifically to go towards paying for a person at the end of the phoneline to help other people like us.
The other video doesn’t have the same feel good thread, but is a very authentic and painful window into how it feels to see his aging mother lose her memory and even the awareness of who her son is to her.
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.
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.