One of Reimagine End of Life SF’s more than 200 events is a storytelling gathering in Berkeley led by Laura Turbow and Rachael Friedman of Still Life Stories. I met Laura in September at a gathering of “collaborators” at The Laundry in San Francisco and spoke with on the phone earlier this week.
Your upcoming event is called “What They Left Behind: A Night of Storytelling.” Tell me more about it.
We hope our gathering will give people time to think about loved ones who’ve passed away.
I’m a big fan of The Moth, live storytelling and our event is Moth-like. We are asking participants to bring an object and a story to share. Unlike the Moth, you can use notes. you don’t need to memorize your story. The idea is that the story is about someone who has died, and the object is a way you remember them.
In our business, Still Life Stories, we use objects as springboards to tell stories about our lives as well as the lives of people important to us who have died.
Can you give me an example of an object that might turn into a story.
Here’s one I love. A friend, her husband Jon passed away while their daughters were still young. She had a box of Jon’s things, which included a broken plastic camera. If the girls were to find that camera, it would mean nothing to them. But it has a story. Jon had been in Africa, in the Peace Corps, and she went to visit him, and when she was there, they were out in the jungles and Jon was taking photos with this camera when they were chased by gorillas.
So the object might have little meaning by itself, but the story gives it meaning?
Exactly. This whole idea for Still Life Stories, which we started three years ago, came from a client who asked me to photograph a sweater. She had kept it for decades. It was not in good shape anymore. It had meaning, but she was never going to wear it, so she had me photograph it so she could let it go. She felt that she could let it go if she had a photograph of it and told the story. So the photo, or the object itself, can lead to the story.
How did you come to be involved in the end-of-life movement?
We found out about it last year. My partner, Rachel Friedman, and I contributed a few photographs to the Reimagine art gallery last year. We also did some photography and interviewing at some of the events.
What do you hope participants will get out of your gathering? Do they have to have something prepared in advance?
I want it to be a community night — they hear something that strikes them, they have a chance to share. I have a great belief in storytelling. I hope this will also be a way of giving time to people who have passed away. There’s mourning and sometimes with stories, you can tap into those who have died after they’ve gone.
What would you say has surprised you most about what you’re doing? What have you learned?
You know it sort of like things coming out of the closet. It’s hard for people to talk about dying and death. This whole Reimagine End of Life idea is like an awakening to death. It turns it on its head. It’s a more accepting approach. So many of us deny the idea of death, but that can make us us crazy. Accepting death is easier than denying it.
I have this big place for gratitude in my mind and my heart. I’m grateful for many joyful experiences. But my mind can go from having gratitude and at the same time to an anxious feeling of loss and “what-ifs.” Especially if I think about people I know who have died. I’m happy to be alive. I feel lucky to have all the gratitude. But it’s a muscle we have to work. My father-in-law is a former oncologist who helped his patients with end of life, death and dying worked his gratitude muscle every day and is a person who now regularly leans in toward gratitude.
Have you done this before?
No. We started our business three years ago, but this is our first big, live storytelling gathering. We do have two lead storytellers to help get it going. We’re really hoping people will come with objects and stories.
I think Reimagine is ahead of the curve as far as getting the conversation about death out there on the table for us all to digest. But we’ve made progress. Remember, for a long time, you would whisper the word cancer. Now you can say it out loud.
Tell me again where and when.
In Berkeley at Congregation Beth-El, 1301 Oxford Street, Wednesday, October 30, at 7 pm. We hope to see you there.
Storytelling allows people to feel connected. It’s important for people to tell their stories, important for them to be heard. It’s important to honor those who have passed away. We don’t talk about the dead as much as we could.
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