Are We Our Stories?

         About a month ago I was able to attend a conference for pastors and church leaders.  The theme of the retreat was story-telling: the importance of hearing and sharing the stories that make us who we are.  I found myself troubled by some of what was said, but I tried to stay in the positive of what we learned concerning the importance of telling our stories and hearing other people's stories.  The conference ended with lunch, and as I sat with a new friend I had made at the conference, she turned to me and asked what my biggest take-away had been.  I told her that I needed time to think on that, but that obviously she had been thinking about it already, so I wondered what her biggest take-away was.  She said it was a negative take-away.  She is the pastor of an older congregation, many of whom have Alzheimer's and other forms of dementia.  She said, "If our stories define who we are, what happens when we can no longer remember those stories? If we are our stories, when those stories are lost, are we lost too?"  And in her words, I realized exactly what had been troubling me throughout the conference.  

          My mother has Alzheimer's.  In her case, it is not so much that she has lost her stories, as that her stories have changed, dramatically.  She is at the place in her illness where she tells outrageous stories of mistreatment (in particular), some that she claims happened years ago, some that she believes to be happening in the moment.  None of them are accurate.  For example, when my father went outside to get something from the car, she informed me that "that man has left me and I don't know what I did!"  I explained that Dad had just gone to the car to get something and she insisted that "No.  He's left me.  He's not coming back."  When he came back in and I said, "See, here he is!" she gave me that look of an abandoned, mistreated child and turned away.  That same afternoon as I made her a peanut butter sandwich for lunch, she told us that when she was a kid she was not allowed to have sandwiches.  Again, I have enough stories of her childhood, shared with me both by herself and her siblings, to know that this is not in fact true.  Still, in that moment these stories were true for her.  

          The stories that might once have defined her, that might once have made her into the person she is are gone.  Nonetheless in so many ways, my mother is still the person she has always been. Her personality is the same in many ways.  There is consistency in who she has become, even with the Alzheimer's.  And while that, too, may change (after all Alzheimer's does take us away from ourselves  and our loved ones, one painful step at a time), she is more than all of that.  She is more than her face and her body (which are changing for all of us all the time).  She is more than her memories, or her lack of memories.  She is more, even, than her personality.  She is more than what she has done and what she has left undone.  The conference answer to the question of who we ultimately are seemed to center completely on stories. And while the conference solution to the fading of memories was that "We therefore need to be intentional about sharing our own and each other's stories" and "In the end, God will remember our stories even when we cannot," I have to say that I found both these answers unsatisfactory in many ways.  

         I agree with Pierre Teilhard de Chardin when he says, "We are not human beings having a spiritual experience; we are spiritual beings having a human experience."  As humans, we are given the experiences of this life: all of our thoughts, feelings, actions, and stories are a part of that.  What our brain does, with its gifts and its limitations, and yes, its stories, is a part of that experience.  Frankly, the experience of Alzheimer's and other dementia is often also a part of our human experience, a part of living.  It is not an easy part, but it is still a part, still an experience that we have here on this human journey.  And as a person grounded in the deep belief that we are more than our experiences here, more than this human journey, I have to believe that our identity, our meaning, our grounding goes beyond our stories.  

        For me, then, ultimately who each of us is, is a deeply loved, seen, understood and valued child of God.  And, big picture, each of us is part of a whole: deeply, intricately connected to every other part of creation. When we lose our stories, when we lose our memories, when we lose our abilities, and our functionality, and even our personalities, we are still valued, loved, deeply important pieces of a bigger picture that is a wondrous creation.  Each of us are a unique and beautiful drop in the ocean of life.  We are still children of God.  And we are still spiritual beings experiencing that painful and difficult part of the human journey as well.  Again, it is not an easy part of the journey.  But with every breath we take, the Spirit remains with us, accompanying us in our human journey, and being present with us even when that journey ends.  Ultimately, then, we return to being simply the spiritual beings that have had a human experience.  That is who we are, even when the stories are gone.