A Good Story
For Martin Gallery
*Please forgive my late post today, friends. I was not able to complete things in my normal timeframe. Continue reading for more of an explanation.
*Slightly edited from the original*
This is not the post I’d planned. In fact, I was in the middle of writing when I got a call. My dad is dying, my friend said simply and through tears. And so, I set aside my writing. These are the moments when much of the routine of life becomes second to the sacred.
We’ve known this moment was coming, yet that phone call also surprised me. This wasn’t how I’d planned the day, I thought, and I thought there would be more time. The irony is that we all know we are 100% guaranteed of this one thing, the essential thing that we all have in common. We will lose people we love to death. Every one of us will die. Yet somehow we also believe each moment that there will always be more moments. And then eventually there aren’t.
This friend who called me has been part of my life since I was 4 years old. This family is like family to me. Martin, who is nearly 80, is still here today, but this time is precious. And precious time pauses us in a kind of sweetness that is hard to explain.
I am thinking particularly today of how Martin has always been one of the best storytellers I’ve ever known. And this is important.
Earlier in the week I listened to a podcast in which the speakers considered faith and doubt. If we’re going to say we have faith, the speaker commented, we should be able to say what it is we have faith in.
The power of storytelling is one thing for certain I have faith in. Its power brings people together, reminds us of our common humanity, and of our shared threads of understanding and connections. It’s a power that keeps people at a table, rather than driving them away. It’s a power that allows people to experience the range of human emotion without proselytizing or lecturing. The power of story reminds us of that we share more than we can even imagine—if we’re willing to listen.
That’s the trick, I suppose—being willing to pause and listen. The sweetness of doing nothing but being filled with the connective tissue of story. It puts flesh on bones and air into lungs.
So let me tell you a story about this man who was a best friend to my dad and treated me like a daughter. Martin could be serious and after many years of working with people who could help him battle some serious demons, he started telling stories about his time in Vietnam. Family members would encircle him and he’d offer a glimpse into the reality he was forced to live. Allow his people to know him a little more. But throughout his life, he told us about himself through his humor. He is sly and witty, not sarcastic, but loves to spin a good yarn or to lovingly tease, play a good joke. And he was outrageously believable every time.
One year when I was 15, I was with Martin and my friend Liz and the rest of the family at a beach cottage in Ocracoke, NC. This year, Martin and his wife Cheryl had rented an old cottage named Nanny’s and Pappy’s after the original owners. It sat on a sandy road with a front porch and a rickety and heavy screened door that slammed hard every time we entered or exited the house.
“That door,” he said, completely serious, “is really something. I couldn’t believe when I found out it took Pappy’s life.” Still deadpan. “Yeah, poor Pappy was killed by that screened door.”
About 5 years ago, we were all sitting around telling stories again when that old house, Nanny’s and Pappy’s, came up in conversation. “Oh yeah,” I said, “that screened door killed Pappy.”
The whole family started laughing hysterically. For 30 years I’d believed one of his many tall tales and now I’d outed myself as a sucker. Again. What a kick it gave him to know I’d believed that one for so many years.
But this is what Martin did. What he does. Pulls people into a kind of escapade with words, brings people around the table, finds ways to get people to pause and take in the sweetness of life. The power of a good storyteller is like that. And I have faith it will go on.
Please enjoy this week’s yoga and breath practice by clicking on the title. These practices normally go out to paid subscribers weekly. This is a bonus thank you to all this week. And thank you, friends, for reading, for supporting my work, and for connecting with others through stories of your own. Morning Yoga with Christa