And sometimes horrifying reading. I don’t think this is too personal to just quote directly, and I don’t trust myself to adequately paraphrase it:

One afternoon, I came home from school and there was a strange man in the living room talking to Dad and Mom. He was one of Dad’s cousins and was home on leave from the Army. I sat and listened with wide eyes as he described his participation in the atomic bomb tests in Nevada. He along with many other soldiers had sat in a trench one mile from ground zero. They had dark goggles and ear protection that was their only special equipment. The bomb sat on a tall tower. They were told not to look at the tower or to raise their heads above the edge of the trench. When the bomb went off, Dad’s cousin saw a blinding flash, and was thrown backwards against the trench wall. He said that the blast was deafening and that a sheet of hot sand whistled over his head. We talked for a while and then he left. I never saw him again. Six years later, in 1958, I heard that he had died of leukemia.

I’m so thankful you have such loving and thoughtful parents! Thanks for sharing this story about your birthday present. Not very many things in life are so sweet.

It also explains where you get your sweetness from. :)

My maternal grandmother is like a mother to me. I have been trying to write her history since I was about 20 years old. I have taped recordings of her storytellings and others of me asking questions.

I also hope to do this for my children someday.

There are some books on the market in journal style where there is a question prompt about the parent and then the question is filled in. One I bought is for the mother and the other is for the father. Another book I had borrowed from the library was a huge list of questions for a person to use to write such a book.

I would really love such a thing from my own parents too. They won’t do it though.

I have read that asking these questions over the phone sometimes helps people open up more than face to face interviewing.

Lastly I want to share that once on Oprah there was a mother of a young child who was dying of Cancer and she wrote such a book to her children but it also included her wisdom, advice for living and stuff she had hoped to teach her children when they got older. Oh, I’m sorry I think she might have done it on video recording instead.

Anyhow I am happy that you received such a gift from your parents. Enjoy it!

What a wonderful present your parents gave you! I love that idea, and I will be stealing it. ;-) Personal history is always a huge hit here at our house, so I know that something like this would go over huge with the boys (I have twin boys, one of which has autism/ Asperger’s- we just had neuropsychological testing done… the doc thinks my one twin is more on the spectrum for Asperger’s…).

I love your blog, by the way. I’ve been reading it for some time, and I am very grateful for all the information you post, and the experiences you share.