Why Rememberize

 

For a number of days now I have been thinking almost constantly about this new venture in which I am involved. When I was invited to take part in building a business around the concept of Rememberizing, I was intrigued. As I have thought more and more about it, I have noticed things that make me realize why this is a great idea.

We see it all around us, and it is very prominent on social media. An acquaintance of mine, Stan Lockhart, has developed a bit of a following for stories from his life that he shares on Facebook. They’re not always designed to put him in a positive light, but they always seem to have a message. That’s what our personal life stories do, they shed light on who we are and allow others to draw inspiration from our experiences.

I am a journalist, and I love to write. For me, it’s not a desire to be the first one to get that news story that shocks the world that draws me to this profession. Instead, I love the process of storytelling that makes a good feature. I enjoy the interviews and the research that allow me to find a message in almost any experience and then the challenge of telling those stories in a way that entertains and inspires the reader. That’s what we want to do at Rememberize. Everyone has great stories and we want to help bring them to life to entertain and inspire.

As I was going through this recent awakening, my wife Paula’s aunt posted a story on Facebook that touched me and brought a chorus of requests from her family members to share more stories or to write a book. People crave great stories, particularly those that put them on the front lines to see the experiences of people they “know” as if they were actually there. This social media entry was posted by Paula’s aunt, Carrie Osborne, on September 21, 2018, the 72nd anniversary of her father’s passing.

Jose Perfecto Viola Villarica was a doctor in the Philippines, helping the guerillas during wartime, and the story was about his extreme illness and the care of a Japanese doctor leading to a difficult journey to the hospital in Manila. It included the words of a song he shared with his wife during that journey as he was delirious with fever. It was not a story with a “happy” ending, but it came across with a powerful message that reached many in Carrie’s extended family as she shared it.

That’s the reason we rememberize. Those amazing stories of our lives only become our personal history when they are shared and recorded. And once they have been, they grow in power because they teach lessons that we can apply in our own lives.

I’m doing this because I want to help people realize the power of their stories. As someone who loves to write, even I am intimidated by the thought of sitting down to write a personal history. The histories I enjoy the most, however, are filled not so much with facts and dates and figures, but with stories. For those of us who are intimidated by those big personal history books, perhaps it’s best to think of it as starting with one story from our life and see where that leads.