My weekly phone call with Joseph1 began as it usually did: we exchanged pleasantries and chatted a bit about the weather. Joseph was a man of advancing years, and while he didn’t seem to have a particular affinity for any one subject over another, he did have a careful and considered opinion about whatever topic I happened to broach. The weather was no different, for all its reputation as a subject of small talk. If I remarked on a sunset we’d had the evening before, Joseph remarked that the cause was a sandstorm from the middle east, for example. If I bemoaned the rain, he explained the complex streams and depressions that held the dome over our area. Although he didn’t seem to have a particular interest in meteorology, he nevertheless came to our conversations armed with knowledge to contribute intelligent insight.
This week provided him plenty to discuss, as the remnants of Hurricane Beryl were making their way towards our home state of Michigan. By the time the storm arrived, it wouldn’t even be a tropical storm anymore, but it was still a noteworthy occurrence for us to receive the wrath of a diminished hurricane. “I’ve never seen that before,” he said thoughtfully. “At least, I haven’t been in the bull’s eye.” His town was on the direct path of the storm and rainfall was going to be over six inches in the day that it would be here, which is a lot for our region. “I’ve seen a lot, but not that. It can’t be worse than the blizzard of ’78, though. Now that was something.”
I perked up. While Joseph was a scintillating conversationalist, he rarely offered much in the way of personal remembrances. “What happened in 1978?” I asked with interest, keeping the question open-ended.
“Oh, it snowed for two days. The whole state was shut down,” he said. “You wouldn’t believe the snow—clear up over all the windows and doors. It was higher than my car!” Once he began to reminisce, Joseph opened up and shared memories as if he was reliving the time, marveling at the wonder of what he was seeing again in his mind’s eye. “It took days for them to dig us out. Days, I’m saying! They had to bring trucks in just to take the loads and loads of the stuff somewhere. It was something. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
A quality had crept into Joseph’s voice, that reverence of nostalgia for just a short while. He wasn’t recalling anything particularly emotional or eventful, just an ordinary memory. But sharing it brought a forgotten feeling of wonder, a lightening, a bit of joy. I could hear him smiling over the phone. “Well, that was really something,” he concluded.
The act of sharing a memory is important for us all. It can come at unexpected times, at the most surprising moments. Even something as innocuous as asking about the weather can create a connection that opens that moment. Joseph’s unexpected opportunity was Hurricane Beryl. How can you connect with your loved one? Maybe start simply: just ask them how they are and if they like the weather today. You might be surprised where the conversation goes from there.
Don’t let these stories fade away with the storm—Easy Tidings helps you capture and share these moments every week.
- Not his real name ↩︎
