Everyone has a story to tell.
Not everyone knows how best to share it, or even the value of the lives they’ve lived, but a new seniors’ autobiography group in Fergus wants to change that.
Through a pilot project with the Upper Grand Health Team, which was facilitated by social worker Nadia Landry and mental health therapist Laura McCran-McDermott, a group of seniors gathered for an eight week program to share their personal stories.
“The idea was to write a guided autobiography,” Landry explained. “What made our group different was that we paired younger and older seniors together.”
The younger seniors volunteered to act as interviewers and scribes for the older seniors. Landry explained the younger members were there to act as an impartial audience and as a “witness” to the story.
“The essence of the volunteer role was to take short points down, and the challenge was for the older senior to take the points and write them into a short story,” Landry said. “The intention was also to get the volunteers to think about their own stories.”
The purpose pairing of seniors in this manner was to encourage both the younger and older seniors to connect and see the value of their own life journeys.
“The idea came in that there was a gap in younger seniors transitioning to retirement, life changes,” McCran-McDermott said. “And for our older seniors there were risk factors of isolation, loneliness, sometimes related to issues of transportation.”
The group met each week and was given different themes and questions to evoke stories.
“It was unexpected but wonderful, the way they shared their very different stories and the support they gave each other after they shared,” McCran-McDermott said.
She added some of the participants were surprised they had a story in their past that anyone else in the group would care to hear. Having the seniors realize the value of their experiences was vital to this project.
“The challenge is for others to realize they had stories that were riveting,” said Greg Colley, a young senior volunteer. “You could do a play from each of their stories and have people walk away thinking, ‘wow’.”
Colley was impressed at how the seniors faced diversity, tragedy, illness and life challenges with resilience.
For Anne Aulich and her volunteer Louise Fletcher, the project created a new friendship but also a sense of healing.
Aulich was born in Bohemia in 1923, a time when the Third Reich had moved into her homeland.
“I was glad to leave my stories behind in Europe,” Aulich said, noting she had been in Canada for 54 years. “If it hadn’t been for Louise, I would have quit in the second session.”
Fletcher took Aulich’s German passages and translated them into English.
“It was an excellent experience,” Fletcher said. “It was a wonderful story. I treasure the complete confidence Anne had in me.”
Aulich’s stories of fear, loss and near-death experiences were compelling.
“Louise gave me the strength to face my past with a courage I never thought I would have had, because she is a wonderful person who encouraged me to open up and talk about it,” Aulich said.
“I am in a place now where I can look at in a way that is not affecting me in a negative way. “
McCran-McDermott noted that “trust was imperative” in the senior pairings.
Marie Woronchuk also had stories to share and found the group’s diversity appealing.
“One of the reasons it worked was because none of us knew each other. It was a new experience for all of us,” said Woronchuk.
Added Fletcher, “No matter how different their stories were, there was always a thread, a way to go through whatever their hardship was … they always survived it.”
Landry said the aim of the project was to create connections and share stories – not to function as a therapy group. However, “there was a very therapeutic impact to it.”
She said, “It really has been the most amazing thing; seeing the strength in our seniors and what they have to teach us … about life, and their active lives. It helps us re-frame our own lives.”
As explained by Colley, “Every life is worthwhile. Everybody has a role to play. Sometimes it takes somebody else to point it out.
“It truly is the most amazing thing to participate in something like this.”
A new autobiography group will begin in April with at-risk seniors referred by family physicians or social workers, thanks to the continued support of the Victorian Order of Nurses, which provided transportation, and the Upper Grand Family Health Team, which provided the resources.
For information, contact a family physician or the Upper Grand Family Health Team at 519-843-3947.
