Book 224 - A Year of Magical Learning

Reflection Title: Stories Can Save Us!

Book – The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien

Book Description: A classic work of American literature that has not stopped changing minds and lives since it burst onto the literary scene, The Things They Carried is a ground-breaking meditation on war, memory, imagination, and the redemptive power of storytelling. The Things They Carried depicts the men of Alpha Company: Jimmy Cross, Henry Dobbins, Rat Kiley, Mitchell Sanders, Norman Bowker, Kiowa, and the character Tim O’Brien, who has survived his tour in Vietnam to become a father and writer at the age of forty-three. Taught everywhere—from high school classrooms to graduate seminars in creative writing—it has become required reading for any American and continues to challenge readers in their perceptions of fact and fiction, war and peace, courage and fear and longing.

Reflection:

Stories have magical powers, and The Things They Carried was a magical story.

I’ll never stopped being amazed at how mere letters and words on a piece of paper can transform into vivid images in your mind. It is incredible and makes me proud to be a human knowing this is a superpower that only we can do.

For the reader, a great story has the power to change paradigms, open minds and hearts, force you outside of your comfort zone, scare you, make you laugh, make you cry, impart wisdom, and teach lessons all at the same time. This story did all of that and then some for me. The author, Tim O’Brien, did a masterful job of painting the picture of what it feels like to be a soldier, in and out of the war. All the pain, suffering, depression, torment and simultaneous beauty, camaraderie, and sensations of feeling like you are truly alive.

The line that sticks in my mind the most was how he described the feeling of war after a fire fight. While you may never feel more panic in your life, after everything calms down again experiencing the world around you will never make you feel more alive. The sky never looks so clear, you appreciate all the life and nature around you, and you take in the little things like they are being experienced for the first time. I’ve never been in a war, but after hearing that description, I can imagine exactly what that must feel like. That

For the writer, a great story has the magical power to heal. For this, I know all too well as this is the reason I write.

As the author, Tim O’Brien, states, “Stories are for eternity, when memory is erased and there is nothing to remember except the story”.

I struggle sometimes to remember the times I had with my daughter these days.

I struggle to remember the feel of holding her tiny little hands, what it was like to be the first person she saw when she opened her eyes, how it felt to sit on that couch next to her and watch her in extreme pain in the last few days of her life, what it was like to watch my wife hold her in her arms as she took her last few breaths, and even how much pain I was in every single day after we lost her. Each new day that passes, I remember less and less of what it felt like to live life with my daughter. If this fading memory is all I had left of her, I would be tormented. I would fight like hell to remember the good times, but I have a feeling all I’d remember where the painful ones.

This is why I write…to change the narrative, to craft a different story, to remember my daughter in my own unique way, and to create new memories with her for the rest of my days.

It is through writing that I don’t have to worry about my daughter’s memory slowly fading with my memory over time. Her story lives on through me and with me every single day. She and I are one, our stories are intertwined through the words I write and actions I perform each and every single day. I don’t have to feel stuck in time in one place, I can write a new story for us to live in the here and now. The story that I’m writing with her is a blast and I’ve never been happier in my life. Through writing, we can tell whatever story we want to tell. For me, the story I’m telling is one where Emilia and I are together every single day, just like it was supposed to be in the first place.

Stories can save us!

Thanks, Tim, for sharing your story. I really appreciate you letting me take a look into your life and mind through your words. Keep writing that new narrative, sharing, and never give up…I know you will.

Question: What stories have transformed your life?

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Links:

What is The Year of Magical Learning? - An Introduction

YOML Podcast Discussion - Coming Soon

YOML Bookstore - The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien