< Back Jonathan's Story, 2021 Jonathan talks with Julia about the importance of his family network during the pandemic. Likewise, he is thankful for social media and zoom technology because it enabled him to stay in touch with his family. 00:00 / 03:46 Again the family network was very, very important. Your children, where are they currently living? Where are they living? Two of them are in Northampton Massachusetts, which is where I am now. Which explains one hundred percent why once we were both retired why we moved here. My daughter said cheerfully, I am quite happy to look after you when you are a Gaga but I am not driving up and down 91. And that seemed pretty reasonable. She's been, she's been wonderful. During the pandemic, you know before we all got vaccinated and all that, she would go shopping for us. We didn’t feel this way but we pretty much lived an isolated life in our house. And she wouldn’t let us go anywhere and it was wonderful. And she was very cheerful about it, never complained. That's a great relationship to have too, and very selfless of her. Yeah, oh yeah, I mean she's, all three of them are very very caring about these old folks that report to be their parents. Would you say, I know you mentioned that now looking back on it, during COVID you were isolated, but would you say that that isolation translated to feeling lonely or would you say on the contrary, being able to use zoom and connect with your brothers all over the country and also with your son in California and having your daughter around, would you say you actually still felt very connected? Yeah, I know that people who lived on their, who lived on their own, have had to cope with learning, there is no question about it. Which means both our sons, so child number one, child number three, are on their own, and different times it’s been very hard. We have a nephew too who lives in Ottawa and he’s on his own, he's talked about that. I think that for people who are partners and who get on with their spouses, some of course are partners but wish they weren’t, but we are not in that category. It's been, it's been much easier. I felt, right at the beginning of the pandemic when it was totally unexpected and we had no idea what was happening, I suppose I felt a little bit, alone. But, having a spouse, having children and grandchildren who didn't come into the house for months but we would walk up and down the street. You know, and chat with them. And having zoom and being a voracious reader, I don’t think that was an issue for me. Previous Next

< Back Rene's Story Rene explains how she feels being the eldest sister of her siblings. She talks through how an experience with her brother brought their relationship together. 00:00 / 03:59 So my first question is what was your role as the eldest self out eldest sister? Well, I'm the oldest of four. And let's see, I have a sister who's two and a half younger, two and a half years, three years younger than I am. And then another. I had a brother and a sister seven years younger than I am. So we were the girls and twins. That's what we refer to as we were growing up. It was wonderful. It's really a position of privilege. And it's also burden. It was also burdensome. I was a lot was expected of me in terms of helping my mom take care of the other three, she was a woman who was viewed as sickly, and I was capable, and I was smart. And I was willing, because I just wanted those parents to walk me into an audit to get me what I wanted to care those kids in January of 2019, my brother, her twin died, my brother died, he had cancer. And for the last three months of his life, the three sisters we're very close family, almost too close. Sometimes we were almost too close sometimes. My three sisters and I went to Florida and took care of him in his in his medical needs were complicated. And three of us just took on what we were best at. My sister Joanne, the youngest one, his twin is good at organizing shows, she would organize things. And everything was very organized. The medications were organized, our schedules were organized. My sister Marina who loves loves, loves animals. She's such a tender hearted woman. Well, my brother had 180 pound English master. And the dog ate only raw food because my brother was very fussy about what his dogs eat. And Marina, we prepare my sister is two and a half years younger, she would really take care of moose ducks name was moose. And she would feed him and make sure he was water bowls. I mean, Moose was a lot of work. It was like having another child and did things that were more around the emotional caretaking of my brother and made sure that every time he left his bed and came out into the main area, and he had this television screen, which was like, like a sports bar television screen, it was huge. And he would come and sit on the couch and blare it out. And I made sure that every time he came out and sat down, loose was on one side of him in a sister, any one of us, no matter what was going on, one of us had to be sitting next to him, like holding his hand or leaning up against what I leaned up against him. I really wanted him to feel and know our presence and our love was very, very moving. It was such a gift to be with him at the end such a gift and in many ways it both is in a funny way it bonded us the three sisters. It bonded us in a way nothing else could have done. And it also gave us some freedom from each other because I grew up in this enmeshed family, family that just to leave the family was felt like sometimes an act of betrayal to go to college felt for me like an act of betrayal. Somehow after Mark step, having had this very intense experience. We found our freedom to be more of who we were, as individuals. Previous Next

< Back Robert's Story, 2024 00:00 / 04:13 In my mid-twenties, I have been in a commune for a while, and I was kind of in the process of getting ready to leave the commune, I guess. Mhmm. And, I was married and had a child who's about one year old. One day, I just I went to visit a friend of mine named Glenn, and he was with his buddy Scott. And strangely enough, when I walked in, they were sitting at this table and playing with the Ouija board, which is not something that, you know, was part of what we used to do. But, you know, it was kinda fun. They were doing that. And, they said, Hanks. Everybody called me Hanks. Get a get a get a pen and paper here. We got a pad of paper. We need you to write down the letters. They're happening so fast that we can't keep track of them. So, I said, oh, okay. And so, I, you know, got the pen. I got the pad. And, you know, the Ouija board, the little pointer was flying around, and it said the letter, and I'd write down the letter. They explained to me that they were communicating with somebody in spirit named doctor Fisher. They said, Higgs, come on. You must have, like, some questions you can ask doctor Fisher. Right? And one thing I had been feeling lately and that I thought was strange and interesting, but I had this feeling in my stomach kinda like third chakra feeling, but also very physical feeling of connection with my wife. So, this bonding feeling, that that was unique. I'd never felt that. So, I asked doctor Fisher or whoever was moving the pointer around, you know, where that feeling came from. Doctor Fisher said, she was your twin in a previous life. And so, and at the time, I did believe in reincarnation. So, I thought, oh, I guess that's possible. I said, so we had a I asked again. So, we had a previous life together, and doctor Fisher said, no. Her previous life was in your mother with you. Died before you were born. So, I'd never heard about my mother having a, you know, a stillborn child along with me being born. So, I don't know. Maybe a couple of weeks later or something next time I I was speaking with my mom. I told her about the Ouija board, and she said, oh my god. Did I ever tell you about my miscarriage? And I said, no. What do you mean your miscarriage? She said, well, you know, when I was pregnant with you, several months or, you know, but fairly early in the pregnancy, I had a miscarriage. And I didn't even see a doctor about it. I thought it was pretty obvious. So I was young. I just kept drinking and smoking and partying and skiing and hanging out with my friends and your dad. And, we're kind of relieved. I thought I would just get pregnant later on in the marriage. But several weeks later, she was still here, she's still getting fatter. And so, she did go to a doctor and found out she was still pregnant with me. So, it's possible that I there I was a twin. And oddly enough, I have kind of, you know, I've read about twinship, and I I have felt like a kind of an odd sense of being a twin. Previous Next

< Back Charlie's Story, 2022 Charlie recounts his rich experience traveling the world, and what he has learned from a lifetime of travel. He discusses the importance of how traveling helps us experience and help better understand other cultures, and how the individuals of these cultures shape his experiences. 00:00 / 04:58 So to start out, I wanted to ask you to tell me about your travels throughout your life. Oh, totally I've been we've been very lucky with the chances to travel widely and a number of ways. We've traveled in Europe and Southeast Asia, Australia, New Zealand. And we traveled by boat and we travel by plane to some places that folks don't likely get to. So we've been very lucky. What what we started doing was bareboat chartering. And so we go down with friends and charter a boat for a week and poke around. And then we got to know some folks down there. And that led to a number of trips that took us to quiet little places that were very special. Yeah, what places did you end up visiting? Well, the some of the most interesting those days were in the Bahamas, which is not far from Florida. The Bahamas, or that's an earring because that a lifestyle is a very simple one and tied closely to the water. So people fish and people say, Oh, it's a much less complicated life.Each culture has its own defining food preferences, but so it becomes a question of which your pleasure artists are buried. So when you hurt Italy, I remember, we literally he took us out into the countryside of his place, and we'll probably had five or six courses. And in between each course, there was a different pasta dish. So oh, you could Oh, the pasta, trouble. And other cultures that fish can be defining, particularly in the islands where the fresher, fresh and wonderful. And and then of course, there's always the wind to wash it down with that makes that compliments of me also. It's all fun. Some of the places that we went to, as I say, we traveled around the world. And it's you, you realize when you travel that, wow, the architecture and the historic ask aspects are interesting. It's the people that make the difference. And so we'd always try and somehow connect with local folks wherever we were. And that made it especially nice. It was interesting because you can read forever about different cultures but until you talk to the people, while you're there isn't really illuminated and and so the people flesh out the sense you have the culture. So I know that it is it's clear that you've had a lot of time spent traveling and going throughout different places in the world. I definitely want to be able to travel more in my future and so I was curious if you had any advice for me for my future travels. The only advice I would give as a general advice that remember that traveling in my view is about the opportunity to meet people and focus on people lose much this the charm with the area and look food and all the reasons that it's appealing. Previous Next

Gail's Story Gail's Story 00:00 / 04:26 Well, two of the most important people are Harold and Eleanor Chase. They lived across the street from us when our kids were young. They were in their late seventies. They became our third set of grandparents. Mrs. Chase used to make rolls every Thursday for the kids so they’d pop out of the oven and my children would enjoy eating them sitting on the steps. And Mr. Chase used to save cereal boxes and he would cut all of the colors out of the cereal boxes and he would use them to make cards for our children. If their birthday came, they would open up the mailbox and take out an envelope. And when they opened the envelope, out popped Mickey Mouse holding a dollar! And he would do different characters and it was really very meaningful to them. Mr. Chase was a retired carpenter before the Depression came. He always was interested in doing something. So he helped us, refinish our attic area for a bedroom. He was so exact that he could count out the exact number of nails he would need to do his job. He asked if he could put a roof on our house at one time. And in order to put supports for him to kneel on, he took coffee can and he flattened it out and put it up under the roofing tile. And he then put a piece of wood that he hammered on there so that he could lean on it. So he was very creative. Now they owned a trailer and they would take their trailer to Rocky Neck Beach in Connecticut. They left their trailer for us for two weeks. so we could go and enjoy it. And we had quite a good time with the children. They were always doing things for us. They were most important because of their giving of themselves, especially to our children. Mr. Chase sat on the curb with my son and taught him to read fluently at age four years of age. He and his wife were, they were a good pair. He would go up on his roof to fix the roof and his wife would stand on her porch outside and bless herself or genuflect because she was afraid at 80 years old he was gonna fall off the roof. Now they have impacted our life, my life, and my husband's, and their warmth was contagious. We became close friends, very close friends with them and later helped them in times of need. He gave me the key to his house and he showed me where all of his important papers were and where he kept his money. And after his wife had died of Alzheimer's and he had taken care of her, he said to me, ‘I have done in life what I've needed to do. I will not live much longer.’ So he had told me that to check his porch and within two weeks, I would see the paper was still on it. And I of course said to him, oh, you're gonna be fine and we're gonna help you. Well, in two weeks, the paper was on his porch. I went into his house and found him in his cellar - he had had a stroke and he was still alive, but…not very much. So I called the ambulance and the police and he was airlifted to a hospital in Worcester where he spent the next maybe two weeks and he died. For me, he and she were the most important friends in my life. And I would like to see, in this day and age, I would like to see a lot more Mr. and Mrs. Chase's as neighbors, they were perfect. Previous Next

< Back Aidan's Story Aidan talks about his family heritage and some of their memories. During this interview Aidan shares about his tattoos and their significance to his family, life and goals. 00:00 / 05:00 So, my dad is from Ireland and my mom's parents are from Ireland, so most of my extended family, close family, is still back in Ireland, I actually got that flag when I was in Ireland myself, it just reminds me of my family, and I am very close with my family. So, tell me about your family, who's in your family? I have one younger brother his name is Patrick; I also have a younger sister named Orla and an older sister named Emma. We all have Irish names in the sense besides my older sister Emma, Emma is not really an Irish name, I think its German if I am correct. But my older sister is named, my mom used to go to Ireland almost every summer, and my older sister was named after one of my mom's childhood friends who was in Ireland, they were very close but unfortunately my mom's friend Emma passed away from childhood cancer, so my mom wanted to name my older sister after her to honor her. I know you have more than one tattoo, tell me about them! So, my first one I ever got was actually for my grandfather, I didn't think I would ever get a tattoo, but it just so happened that was the first one which it's his birthday and I got it on his birthday about 10 years after he passed. His birthday, which I find interesting is 12/34/1934 and that always seemed very cool to me. But the reason I got it was because my grandfather and I were very close, he was and still is one of my biggest role models growing up, it's kinda just the little things that he would do that always stuck with me. I always think about it from time to time. This one time I fell asleep in the living room of his house, and I could hear him coming down the hall and I thought he heard me being up late at night and I thought he would get mad or something, so I just pretended to be asleep. And he came over with a blanket and he tucked me in because he saw me without a blanket and it was just those acts of caring, compassion they just always stuck with me, you know. He always took such great care of me that I kinda wanna do the same for him, when I'm back home, not at school, I try to go take care of him at his grave. It's on my left arm, which when I put my arms down its first thing touching where my heart is, so he is always with my heart in that sense. So, tell me about some of the others, do they also relate to your family? Ya so I have coordinates that go back to Ireland, to a family home in Ireland, actually where my grandfather was born. One of the relatively new one is a pocket watch. The reason why I got a pocket watch was originally for my father, when my dad grew up it was a thing down the family line of them passing down a pocket watch from son to son. When my grandfather passed away and my dad went to Ireland, he could never find the pocket watch. So, for Christmas 2 years ago we actually got him one. Seeing my father tear up, from this pocket watch, I saw how much it meant to him so that’s where I got the idea, and I was like okay that’s what I'm going to get him. So, when I went to go get it, I had the opportunity to set the time, I wanted something directly for my mom as well, so I set the time on the clock for the time my mom was born. It was also around the time I finished my associate degree, so it had a symbol of new time, new beginnings, new chapters. The reason I got the map wasn’t for a family member, it was really for myself because I always had a love for maps and globes, it felt like the right fit for me. I always had a globe when I was growing up and I loved looking at it I eventually lost it at some point or it broke and now I actually have my grandfather's one because my mom was going through his stuff and she found it and gave it to me which was very nice and I try to take care of it now. I also have another one that I recently got, it’s a molecule for insulin, because my little brother has type 1 diabetes. That was very difficult for him because he was 16 at the time and that just changes your whole life. I wanted him to know even though I don't have it, we are in it together, I will always be here for you, if you ever need help with it or need a ride to the doctors I'm here for you, he had so many needles poked at him I figured I could get a few myself. So that is why I got the molecule because that is the molecule that keeps him healthy. Previous Next

Selena speaks with Jonathan about what it’s like to be living with a family whose views are very different from your own during a global pandemic. Selena's Story Selena speaks with Jonathan about what it’s like to be living with a family whose views are very different from your own during a global pandemic. Scroll to listen Selena's Story 00:00 / 03:29

Carol talks about her experience traveling to Europe her junior year of college after realizing that she needs to go out of her comfort zone. With support from her friend and her parents, this trip changes her perspective on the kind of person she wants to strive to be, for her career but mostly for herself. The European mindset is what influences her to do things that make herself feel whole like slowing down her day with journaling and yoga. This trip has inspired her to travel for nursing and even ignite the courage to solo trip alone someday. Carol's Story Carol talks about her experience traveling to Europe her junior year of college after realizing that she needs to go out of her comfort zone. With support from her friend and her parents, this trip changes her perspective on the kind of person she wants to strive to be, for her career but mostly for herself. The European mindset is what influences her to do things that make herself feel whole like slowing down her day with journaling and yoga. This trip has inspired her to travel for nursing and even ignite the courage to solo trip alone someday. Carol's Story 00:00 / 03:22 Interviewer: Can you tell me about an experience that influenced your life a lot that you felt that you learned something? Carol: I went a trip abroad last year during the spring and before going on a trip abroad I never thought I could do anything like that just because I'm a homebody, I like my own friends and family. And it was a fall semester of my junior year. I realized that I really needed to go out of my comfort zone in order to grow just because I've been so used to being surrounded by my friends and not really branching out. So I decided mid fall to go and before that I was absolutely not going anywhere. I was just going to stay at UMass Amherst and something came over me. One of my friends said to me, you will never be this young and be able to travel the world again and I decided that I really should be able to do that and if I have the opportunity to I would be stupid not to take it. I got on my flight to Barcelona, it was January 11th, and I was so nervous. I remember the week before that, I was crying to my mom and dad. They just kept saying, you are going to have the time of your life. When you come back, you are gonna be a changed person. And I was just like, oh my God, they're not being serious. Like, I'm not gonna be a changed person. But they were right. I was with my two friends, which I know it's not really out of my comfort zone, but it's the best I could get. And we went to 11 different countries and we just traveled the world together and experienced all these different cultures, new friends, and the lifestyle there is quite different than here. It's really relaxed and laid back. There was a saying that I read that people here work to live, but in Europe, people live to work. I think that is so true. When I was there, people were on the street at 12pm, people would be out drinking coffee, enjoying their time with their friends and family. And here, you never really see anybody drinking coffee. They're mostly running to work, getting coffee for work or running back to work. And I really realized that I need to enjoy my life and I don't need to constantly be working, constantly be doing something that leads to work. I need to enjoy it. And these experiences are really what shaped me to who I am. Work won't shape me to who I am. Only the experiences do. So when I came back from abroad, I really decided to live my life and look at my life in a different perspective. I decided to do new things every day that I enjoyed. I tried to put more time for myself into my day-to-day life. And before that, I was just working, constantly doing homework, constantly doing something that will help my future. Even now, I still obviously do that, but now I do more things for myself. Like I meditate each morning. I go to yoga, I journal. And I realized that definitely helped me a lot to become a happier person, just because I saved more time for myself. And I also have gotten more out of my comfort zone. Like now I wanna do a trip alone. I also am going to travel nursing. So I would love to travel alone and work in a different hospital all by myself. I think exposing myself to a different culture and exposing myself to a different country all alone has definitely helped me get out of my comfort zone and try new things. Previous Next

< Back Robert's Story Robert talks to Honor about his experiences living in a commune and how it saved him from serving in the Vietnam war. He explains how his faith and trust in a higher power guided him to conquer this fear, and continues to support him to this day. Scroll to listen 00:00 / 04:00 Previous Next

Rick talks about his parents and how they were his lighthouses growing up. Specifically, he focuses on how a moment with his father in the hospital has guided his view on the meaning of life. Rick's Story Rick talks about his parents and how they were his lighthouses growing up. Specifically, he focuses on how a moment with his father in the hospital has guided his view on the meaning of life. Rick's Story 00:00 / 03:15 I have always felt that my parents were kind of my lighthouses. You know they kind of guided me along the way and I think that my father was more protective of the rocks, but my mom was the lighthouse that steered me to shore when maybe I hit the rocks. They were pretty incredible people, I mean and it is sort of, of course like any family we had our own disfunctions. My father raised birds and when I say we had birds, he had maybe 40 parakeets in a cage on wheels in the garage that he would wheel out. We had ring-necked doves and white doves in the basement in a huge coop. And then he actually built a huge coop outside for the cocktails. So we grew up with lots of birds and he was a very gentle man, he was a man of birds and flowers. My mother was very, my mother was always making something for somebody, okay. She was always crocheting or knitting. And if she loved a soap opera star who had a baby she would send them things that she made. And she was always feeding people. And if she didn’t have food to give someone if she came, she would give you canned food. “You sure you have enough to eat honey?” you know. We took in a lot of people who had no place to go during Christmas and so there were always people who would come for the holidays. They kind of took people under their wing. I think one of the most significant things that happened for me was when my father had kidney disease and when he, it was discovered he only had kidney. Um and he eventually had to go for dialysis but he had that type of poisoning that happens and we were all gathered in the hospital room and I thought that that was going to be the time that he was going to be leaving us. My father has blue eyes, but his eyes changed color. They just sort of. I don’t even know how to describe it, they became translucent and we all noticed that. But he was looking behind us, and I just knew that his brother was in the room, his mother was in the room. You know, his relatives were in the room and that they were there to get him. And to take him. And I really didn’t expect that he would live that night, but he did. And so in the following morning when we went to visit him, and we of course were thrilled that he was still there you know, he said, “I really thought I was going to leave last night and I never thought I would have the opportunity to say I love you again.” And I thought, oh my god, that’s it. That’s the only reason why we are here, that he gave me my mantra. He gave me my purpose. He gave me this incredible insight that the only reason that we are here is for the opportunity to love and say those words. And we forget that as we squabble, as you know, as we go through everything we go through. You know but, that to me became the beacon of his lighthouse. Previous Next

Rebecca's Story Rebecca discusses the lasting influence of joining Science Olympiad in middle school on her relationships, as well as the way that it has shaped her goals and life to this day. Scroll to Listen Rebecca's Story 00:00 / 03:44 I just joined it initially because I wanted something to do, an extracurricular, and when I was in middle school we only had flag football or Science Olympiad. So, for me it was a pretty obvious choice, and I got put just at random in an event called “Disease Detectives” which is just very, very basic epidemiology. So the first time I did a practice exam it was on asthma prevalence in a school where the school was right next to a factory and you had to figure out what was causing high asthma prevalence. It sort of felt like it was solving puzzle, even though we were literally taking an exam. At the end, I just felt so cool—I just thought it was so cool that I could assemble all this evidence and present at the end: this is what happened, this is how it happened. I think it's something that has carried me even now to studying public health because that’s the reason that I chose to study public health is that I wanted to learn more about epidemiology, and I wanted to become a disease detective—as dorky as that may sound. One of my coaches, Senila, who just every single day would just push me, and at first I think she was someone who really scared me because she was so dedicated to her own academics. But, you know, I think her strictness had a love behind it too and so she really just—she inspired me to see what was possible in my future, and she showed me how to do it so I really have eternal gratitude for her for being such a positive influence in my life. A real beauty of Olympiad is that it really does inspire kids to go out into the world and do science. When it became my turn to coach later, I think my excitement and passion for it helped inspire kids to also feel passionate for it. I remember the first year I got, the coaches, got bowling shirts instead of normal t-shirts, and I remember the first time I had my name embroidered on the sleeve it just felt so, so cool. One of the, I think proudest moments of my life was, I worked with this one girl in the club almost every and we became really good friends honestly, and on the day of our actual competition her parents came up to me—and I had never met them before—and they asked me if I was Rebecca. And I said, yes, and they said, our daughter always talks about you. You’ve made her care so much about science and she really, really likes you. It's so important I think to teach people how to learn outside of the context of school. I think Science Olympiad was really, for me, it was that and for many of peers it was too. Really, it taught me to, you know, even if you’re not one hundred percent enthusiastic about something to try it because you honestly never know where it's going to take you. Because I didn’t really want to do Science Olympiad at the start and now it has truly shaped my whole young adult life.

< Back Doris' Story 00:00 / 10:59 Previous Next