Writing past silence: The worthy challenge of intergenerational dialogue

“My pursuit of intergenerational dialogue derives from this lack, I think. These silences, where my courage failed me, or where my elder assumed I’d be all right, that surely I’d make it and so didn’t spare the time and effort to talk to me. I’m no more patient, nor a better listener, than any of my contemporaries. I pursue these conversations somewhat selfishly, and selectively, having told my father just a few weeks ago — wary of being conscripted into some fantasy project of his of gathering the stories of his now-dead relatives — that tragically, or perhaps not, the record of some folks’ lives just don’t get collected, that they’re not remembered or retold.”