{"id":272,"date":"2017-04-14T22:50:47","date_gmt":"2017-04-14T12:50:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cairns-family.com\/blog\/?p=272"},"modified":"2017-04-16T10:26:27","modified_gmt":"2017-04-16T00:26:27","slug":"telling-a-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cairns-family.com\/blog\/2017\/04\/14\/telling-a-story\/","title":{"rendered":"Telling a story"},"content":{"rendered":"

Speaking about emotions, everyone responds differently. That which evokes strong emotion in you probably won\u2019t do the same in your friend, your partner, your kids, your workmates. Or would it? Would you know? How well can<\/em> you know anyone else? What would the person in the neighbouring cubicle do if you told a joke? Would the laughter be genuine?<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s say I have a story to tell. Let\u2019s say it\u2019s a story about a strong man who never receives the affirmation or the words of love he craves from his wife, the person he loves most. He works and strives on her behalf but never hears her say that she loves him. His heart hurts throughout the story, but it\u2019s a good heart and he\u2019s an honourable man, and at the end of the story, he gives up his life to save hers. How? It doesn\u2019t matter. Maybe he throws himself in front of a bullet. Maybe he gives her food when they\u2019re starving. It really doesn\u2019t matter. What does matter is that in the last moments of his life, he realises that she\u2019s been telling him that she loves him all his life, but he never understood. And in those last moments of his life he realises that it was worth it.<\/p>\n

Would that make you feel?<\/p>\n

Or maybe the story I have is about a woman who wants nothing more in life than what she has. There is no striving, no straining. Her husband loves her like few other husbands love their wives, and nothing is too much for him. Her merest wish is his command. In turn, she loves his company, and holds him at every opportunity. She\u2019s not much one for a lot of words, but she turns their house into a home, and ensures that she does for him everything she can do. And at the end of the story, he makes the ultimate sacrifice, and gives up his life for her. How? It doesn\u2019t matter. Maybe he throws himself in front of a bullet meant for her. Maybe he refuses to eat when they\u2019re starving and gives her the last of their food. It really doesn\u2019t matter. What does matter is that, somehow, they realise that there has been a disconnect, and she says the words she\u2019s never said before. Then she has to go on living, knowing that it wasn\u2019t until those last moments that her husband knew she loved him.<\/p>\n

Would that make you feel? Would it make you feel differently?<\/p>\n

Or maybe it\u2019s the story of a woman, talking to a counsellor so many years after having lost her husband. \u201cWhen I was thirty-four,\u201d she says. \u201cBecause I remember waking up on my thirty-fifth birthday, and feeling so terribly alone. It\u2019s been more than twenty years now, and I\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n

She stops, overwrought. \u201cI never forgave myself,\u201d she sobs, eventually. \u201cBut I didn\u2019t know! I just didn\u2019t know\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n

So I wonder. Is the job of writing to tell a story? Or is it to tell just a part of the<\/em> story? I can never really provide more than a snippet, because a person is so much more than a single narrative can contain. It all has to be set in some context, and knowing the context, and then a bit more of the context changes the reader\u2019s feelings.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Speaking about emotions, everyone responds differently. That which evokes strong emotion in you probably won\u2019t do the same in your friend, your partner, your kids, your workmates. Or would it? Would you know? How well can you know anyone else? What would the person in the neighbouring cubicle do if you told a joke? Would […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cairns-family.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cairns-family.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cairns-family.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cairns-family.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cairns-family.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=272"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.cairns-family.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":277,"href":"https:\/\/www.cairns-family.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272\/revisions\/277"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cairns-family.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=272"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cairns-family.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=272"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cairns-family.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=272"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}