Your Story – the Way of Light

By Brenda Riojas, I Start Wondering Columnist

Before my mother-in-law died in January, my daughter started writing letters to her weekly, sometimes twice or three times a week. It served as a two-fold gift. Their epistolary exchange not only allowed my daughter to get to know her paternal grandmother more fully, but she also said it served as a form of journaling her own life as she relayed her own new beginnings as a newlywed in a new state starting a new job. 

In this season of our lives, it is important to share our stories, especially with loved ones. Consider it an opportunity to stay connected, or in some cases reconnect, with someone important in your life. 

A Different Personal Exploration

Corresponding with another can serve as a pause from the day to day to revisit what came before, to share family history and lessons learned. It is a chance to count each blessing – the highs and the lows, the hikes though darkness, the via dolorosas, and the summersault days. Reexamining our days can help us see the via lucis – the way of light.

During a journaling retreat, one woman shared that 30 years have passed since she last wrote about her life. Through tears, she said she saw the value of putting her thoughts, feelings and insights on the page. 

Writing letters can serve as a way of journaling. You could call them legacy letters or an intergenerational correspondence. What a beautiful gift, to preserve our memories as we relay our stories and share some insight to our life’s pilgrimage. Is there someone in your life you would like to connect with, someone who could be the keeper of your story, someone you could share your advice and wisdom with? It is a way to accompany each other as we also take time to learn about their own journey.

In each letter my daughter included a question with blank space for her grandmother Porfiria to write down her response, along with a self-addressed stamped envelope. She also included an audio recorder.

In the last months of her life, Porfiria looked forward to receiving each letter. Each time I visited, she would dictate her memories. At 93, she was not confident in her handwriting, although she managed several letters on her own. “She’s the only granddaughter who has asked me about my life,” she told me. “I have a lot of stories.”

As her health started to decline and we knew the end was approaching, my daughter compiled the stories into a book. My husband and I cried as we read an early draft of “Porfiria: A Life of Love, Faith, and Family” the day before Porfiria died, 10 days after her 94^th birthday. Compiled with love by her granddaughter, the manuscript gave light to a family matriarch’s well-lived life.

Here’s an excerpt of the introduction to the book: 

In 2025, at 93 years old, my grandmother Porfiria Posada Riojas began writing me letters. Not just any letters—but the story of her life. … She shared memories I had never heard before: the smell of bread in her father's bakery, the dresses she sewed as a teenager, the wedding where she saw a man in a white suit walk through the door, and the sixty-four years of dancing that followed. 

Her father used to tease her for talking so much that he wished he could turn her off like a radio. "Hay mejita, I wish you were a radio” and when she asked him why? “Porque”, he responded “so I could turn you off.” But what he saw as endless chatter was really a gift—a gift for storytelling, for remembering, for making sure that nothing important was ever forgotten. "Yo siempre fui muy preguntona," she told me—"I was always very inquisitive."

Those letters gave me the most beautiful gift. Because of them, I got to know her—not just as my grandma, but as a little girl praying every day for a baby brother. As a teenage girl working at the five-and-dime store, quietly calling every customer "sir" even when her boss told her not to. As a young woman who had dated the same boy for four years but knew, when she saw Cesar Riojas walk into that wedding reception, that everything was about to change.

Writing Your Story

What is your story? Who will you share it with? What are your favorite chapters? It can be overwhelming trying to determine where to start. You could begin with the basics – create a timeline of your milestones. Write out a list of questions and answer one each week. 

There are some resources online that can help guide you through the process. When I did a quick Google search, I found an article that reviewed the top three legacy book resources:

1. Memorygram,

2. Storyworth, and

3. Remento.

For my own parents, I took a different approach. The book: “La Primera Voz Que Oí” (The First Voice I Heard) honoring my mother’s memory was a collection of Spanish poems. I am still working on my father’s collection. I have not had the courage or made the time to include his final days. The working title is “Portraits of My Father: A South Carolinian on His Way to Bolivia.”

No matter what approach you take, the key is to start. If you don’t tell your story, who will? As composer and playwright Lin-Manuel Miranda said, “You are the perfect person to tell your story.”  Mara Soloway and Carolyn Dahl have provided some helpful tips on I Start Wondering on how to preserve our stories.  

My daughter, having finished her grandmother’s book, continues her story gathering – recognizing the value. Already in her own first chapters, she has gained some insight on her adventurous approach to life as a 32-year-old. 

Poet Phil Kaye says, “Stories let us carve our initials in the wet cement of this moment.”

I think they also help us “Count it all joy.” All the moments in our lives matter and they help us recognize the blessing it is to be alive. As we recount our stories, we can see how resilient we’ve been to have walked through the via dolorosas into the way of light. Then someday, someone from a later generation might see what you've written and find meaning in it. 

Porfiria did not get to respond to all the letters and questions her granddaughter sent her. Time ran out, and many questions went unanswered. Don’t let time run out on sharing your story.

As you consider your stories, I leave you with three possible starting points.

1. Consider using George Ella Lyon’s poem “Where I’m From” as a writing prompt to recall experiences that you come from. 

2. Name three people who have influenced your life in some way. At what point did they come into your life. Did it change the course of your planned direction?

3. Go through some old photographs. Investigate the stories behind them. Zoom out and think about what’s not in the picture.